System of Variables
by Rediamond
Summary: The Indigo Republic has always been peaceful. At least on the surface. But when a violent history or coups, assassinations, betrayal, and gang wars surface, violence erupts across the nation, this time at every level. What will it take to survive?
1. Part Zero

**A/N: I'm not a fan of authors notes, so I'll try to get this over with quickly. Anyways, this is a hybrid war and journey fic, so be prepared. On another note, I tend to do review exchanges, where a decent review to System will probably be followed by a review to your fic. Additionally, I might do a comment on it in this fic's authors notes, so there's always that. **

**Disclaimer: See the front of any other story. I don't own Pokémon or anything else I may reference. If you didn't suspect that, please have a reality check. **

Prologue: Final Exam

This was it. The final battle. It was by no means an easy match, with a powerful opponent backed by every piece of intelligence in the system matched upon my relatively weak Pokémon. In reality, that had nothing to do with it. I had a few tricks up my sleeve that gave him absolutely no chance. He had pressure. A lot of pressure. Just about everyone I had ever met was watching, and most of them expected me to fail. I knew I wouldn't, but at the same time I wasn't exactly sure. There was no one in the room, yet everyone was. It wasn't just a Gengar that I was facing. It was a lot more.

I glanced back up at the battlefield to confirm that everything was in place. My opponent was levitating on the other side of the clearing, waiting for me to start the battle. My Pokémon was fully formed and waiting in front of me, equally ready to go. "Alright Nidorino, let's start this off on a high note. Go for a Shadow Claw across the chest." Not nearly loud enough. It needed to be firmer, more commanding.

Nidorino leapt at his opponent, the air around his claw distorting into a cryptic grey aura. Gengar narrowed his eyes, the system processing everything about the move. Right as the claw was about to connect, it seemed to register what to do, and immediately dodged to the side. "Again!" Nidorino hit the ground and pounced in the other direction, sending the ghost-type flying back. Unfortunately, he was off the ground in a second and it was obvious he hadn't been badly harmed. Just as expected. No one ever won their last battle by sheer force. Heck, the system probably hadn't let the attack do any damage. "Good, let's try a different tactic. Use-" He wasn't listening. Nidorino was staring into Gengar's eyes, oblivious to anything I was saying. For all practical purposes, the poison-type was dead to the world. I grimaced, realizing exactly what was happening. Every final opponent had some sort of trick. For Machamp, it was the constant confusion from its Dynamic Punch attack. For Clefable it was charming the opponent into not fighting. Charizard abused the sun. I had been almost certain that Gengar was going to try to shut down Nidorino by binding it with Psychic. Apparently it was Hypnosis in this battle. Unexpected, but definitely possible to overcome with just a little thought. Not that I had the time.

As I came to my realization, Gengar's eyes were glowing blue, and Nidorino began to writhe in pain, but was still locked in place. I recognized it as Dream Eater, and it didn't make things any easier. "Sleep Talk!" I yelled out, both for Nidorino's benefit and to act tough for the audience. Thankfully, it did the trick, and Nidorino began repeating its name quietly. I smiled a little for the cameras, but wasn't exactly sure where this was going. For all I knew, this would just be even more humiliating than losing normally. Suddenly, Nidorino stopped talking. His eyes still shut, he lunged forwards towards Gengar, slamming it across the face with a purple fist. The impact sent my opponent flying backwards, and caused eye contact to break. Nidorino opened his eyes, a strange look on his face that I think represented anger. For everything the system could do, it was never good at showing emotion. Now it was time for the difficult part, the part where all planning stopped. The system never kept up a strategy that had been thwarted. It was moving to a reserve one, and I honestly didn't know what it was going to be.

Gengar's eyes glowed again as the system made its decision. This time, they were a pinkish glow, the color of a psychic aura. Brilliant. "Nidorino, sucker punch now!" Nidorino rushed forwards, slamming into Gengar's gut and pushing him back before the attack could be completed. Everything was going according to plan now. "Double Kick." I made sure the command was clear enough so that it could not be misinterpreted. The system did have some override procedures where it would stop listening to anyone controlling it. However, for final tests the override could be overridden again if it was certain the commander intended it. And I was fairly certain that every override feature in the system was going to be alerted to a fighting attack used on a ghost. Nidorino hesitated, the system racing to figure out what to do. And then he jumped. Gengar looked up, the system desperately trying to find anything that it could as to why this would ever be used. At the last moment, Gengar faded a little, becoming intangible for any non-elemental attack. As Nidorino fell through the ghostly outline, I smiled, not even noticing the cameras as I gave the final command of the battle, "Shadow Claw, now!" My opponent was shredded into ghostly essence from the inside out just before the world began to dissolve.

The lights came back on, and I felt the full weight of the system. I tore off the glasses and unhooked some of the cables as I'd done a dozen times before in the earlier tests, while a few of the Professor's lab assistants took care of the more technical details associated with disconnect. I glanced around the room as they worked. The walls and floor were all coated in white tiles, or at least they were where you could see them. Most of the room was occupied in one way or another by the system. A large computer took up the entire backside of the room, humming away as it interpreted various strategies and created the worlds and situations for the tests later in the day. A single technician sat in front of it, busily typing something into the computer. The opposite side of the room was relatively open, but some wires and smaller terminals were positioned throughout the area. And then the side I was on had one of the strangest machines that had ever been created. It looked like a full-body scanner of sorts, with various wires flowing between it and the main computer. The strange part was the suit inside of it. A helmet, and coverings for the arms and legs were either on my body or secured on the walls of the system by this point, and several wires and sensors ran between the exterior of the scanner and my body. All of this served a function, of course. Even with the bulk, expenses, and break downs it was the greatest virtual reality battle simulator in the world, and the system that governed every later exam in the Pallet school system.

The lab assistant at the computer glanced up at me, "Congratulations on the victory. Please enter the hallway and go left until you reach the main conference room. Wait there until you receive further instructions. Do you have any questions?" I shook my head, and left the room. It wasn't exactly what I had expected to hear after passing, but I could understand the formality. There were a lot of people to get through today.

Outside of the room, the line of people waiting for their final exam was as long as when I'd left it. I was only the twelfth to go in the group of roughly 300 students qualified to take their final, so it was going to be a long day, even if the system was processing three people at a time. "How'd it go?" I couldn't tell who said it, but most of the line had at least looked up to hear the answer. I put my thumb up, and walked away with a mostly fake smile on my face. I doubt I could've given a verbal answer if I'd tried. It's not that I'm bad with people. In all reality, I'm actually fairly good at talking with people one on one. I'm just terrible with groups. Absolutely terrible. Seriously, there's only one thing that scares me more. Well, at the time anyways. I've gotten better with people since then, and I've found much, much more frightening things. But that all came about later.

I wasn't used to the hallway being empty. Normally when I was in the school, large groups of people were everywhere, and I had to push to get through. Today I could hear my footsteps, and the only other noise was the increasingly faint sound of the crowd behind me. I looked at the various rooms as I went by. I'd been in a few of them before as a student. After all, spending eight years in the building and having a wide variety of subjects to match ensured that I'd experienced quite a bit here. But all of that was just about over now. Locker cleanout and the main portion of the school year were over. The final exams for those qualified to graduate were today. About one-third of my class, and most of the class above me were eligible this year for graduation. That didn't mean by any standard that they all would pass the exam. The final exam was a very difficult test by any standard, and it required the skills of a master trainer to get through. To compensate, it wasn't exactly required to graduate with a high school degree. It was required to graduate with a degree and a license, so most people took it anyways. Having your degree normally meant less than having a license anyways. To further motivate people, the professor himself gave anyone who passed the exam their first Pokémon, which was an enormous help in starting off a trainer's career.

About three minutes of walking later, I was standing in front of the conference room doors. I'd never been in the room before, as it was normally only used by teachers, deans, and periodically people from the League or the lab. I paused for a moment, and pushed open the large wooden door, closing it gently behind me. There were only three other people in the large room. The school principle Mr. Venser was busy discussing something with Professor Oak, and another student in my age group was sitting in a chair, her legs crossed and headphones in. Shortly after the door closed, the Professor broke away from his discussion, and looked up to face me. A small smile lit up his face, and he stood up and began to walk across the room. "Eli, my boy, I'm so glad to see that you passed. Not that I ever doubted you would," the Professor chuckled to himself, "I brought a friend with me today to celebrate with you."

Professor Oak reached down to his belt, and unclipped a red and white ball from it. He wrapped his fingers around the orb, and clicked the white button on the front. After a short burst of red light, a small blue turtle appeared between us on the floor. "Squir, squirtle," the Pokémon chimed. I smiled, not the fake smile I'd put on earlier, this one was real. I reached down to him and picked him up in my arms.

"How are you doing, buddy?" I asked. The Squirtle wiggled a little to gain a better position, but then stopped moving and began to talk in his own language. After handling him for three years, I'd learned how to decipher some of it. However mostly I just nodded my head and picked up what I could. Professor Oak smiled, and went back to his conversation with the principle. Let me clarify this: I didn't own, or train, Squirtle. He was the Professor's Pokémon; I just cared for him at the lab. If I actually owned him, it would've been illegal prior to that day.

"Glad to see you passed," the girl beside me mumbled. I looked over at her, to see that she had taken her headphones out and had her Charmander on her lap. She was the second of the three junior aides at the lab, and worked in the fire-type section with her Charmander. We'd had our share of disagreements, but didn't really dislike each other. Well, I'm not actually sure what she thought about me. We talked sometimes, and it didn't always break down into fights, but it did often enough. I just liked to imagine we were on better terms to keep her older brother –my supervisor- happy.

"Hello, Bianca. See you cleared your exam." I kept it short, and neutral. I've never known exactly what to say around her to create a conversation that wasn't likely to break down, and had learned several times over that sarcasm and teasing should be reserved for Gary.

"Eh, Slowking was more annoying than I had imagined, but it still only took about twenty seconds," she boasted with a smirk on her face. I was pretty sure she was lying, but didn't bother pushing it. I later found out it took 26, not that it matters. Anyways, the look on her face told me she was in a decent mood, or at least not any state where she was likely to kill me, so I took a seat next to her and Squirtle jumped to the ground. "How did you scrape by?"

I ignored the wording, and just gave a straight answer. "Pretty well, actually. I didn't expect the strategy Gengar used, but found a way around it and powered through." She folded the corner of her lip up in a half-smile of sorts, probably at something I'd said.

"I guess it's to be expected that you wouldn't know what a reasonably smart battler would do. He went for Hypnosis, right?" She was going back to her iPod, just barely paying attention to the conversation.

"Yeah, how'd you know that?" I asked. Hypnosis had never really occurred to me.

She glanced back up, and stared at me for a moment as if I'd asked her the stupidest question she'd ever heard. "Well, it's the best option. Psychic is great for damage, but can be stalled by substitute and dark auras. That, and no final test ever plays that aggressively. Burn is a nice stalling tactic, but Nidorino knows quite a few special attacks as well, so it would be too easy to avoid. Perish Song leads to a tie, which is simply settled by a redo. Hypnosis, on the other hand, has only one good way around it, is unlikely to be predicted by a rookie such as yourself, and shuts down the opponent to later by blasted away by hexes. It's simple really." With that, she turned up her iPod to full volume, blocking out the conversation completely. Squirtle hopped back on my lap, and I stroked his shell for the next few hours while waiting for the tests to conclude.

Thirty people later and the only person I really wanted to see in the room walked in. It honestly didn't surprise me at all that Gary passed, as he could reliably outscore even Bianca in all of the battling strategy tests. His grandfather didn't even have to rig his match for an easy test to make sure that he would win. He glanced around the room, and quickly spotted Bianca and I sitting next to each other. He walked over, and started the conversation in his usual manner "Eli, Bianca, what's up?"

I gestured towards my ear, and he gave a silent laugh as he reached over and ripped the headphones out of her ears. Bianca immediately shot her face up, and glared daggers at Gary who just smirked. What was that about?" she demanded.

Gary held up his hands in a mock defensive gesture. "Hey, I just wanted to talk," he replied.

"I, obviously, did not." She tried to put her headphones back in, but found them in a Bulbasaur's vines by the time she reached them. She narrowed her eyes even further, but before she could yell at Gary the entire conflict was interrupted.

"Gary, Bianca, Elisha, it's nice to see that all of my aides passed." Oak had walked over to the group, and seemed completely oblivious that one of his junior aides was about to murder his grandson, although I suspect this was purposeful. "After the graduation ceremony is done, could you guys see me at my office."

"Of course," I shot in before Gary or Bianca could protest it on the basis of not wanting to be with each other. "I've got some stuff at the dojo to take care of, but after that, I'll come over."

Gary rolled his eyes, "Come on, gramps, I practically live there. I'm sure that all three of us feel the same way," his eyes drifted over to Bianca.

She crossed her arms and legs in her 'I really want you to butt out of my life' gesture, and huffed out "I guess."

"Good, good. We're about two-thirds of the way through the list, so until then celebrate with your peers," the professor glanced between Gary and Bianca, "and try not to kill anyone." With that, he turned around and went back to his discussion with the principle.

"Great advice," Bianca growled as she took her headphones from Gary's Bulbasaur and put them back on.

"Well, someone doesn't want to talk today."

"Gary, when has she ever wanted to talk?"

He shrugged, "True enough. Anyways, after Oak's done with his little discussion, let's have a practice battle tonight."

I stared at him blankly, "Practice battle? But neither of us even have-"

"So what if neither of us have a Pokémon of our own? We have our license now, so we can command anything that'll listen to us. And that's assuming that gramps doesn't give us Squirtle and Charmander, which he probably will. We've got nothing to worry about," he interrupted.

I paused for a moment, and listened to the buzz of other conversation in the room. He was right. After today, I could legally have a Pokémon battle. That was going to be strange, to put it one way. Simulator fighting was one thing, but actual battles would be another thing entirely. It would be something like the difference between Zelda and actual fencing. "My mom will probably want to talk to me."

Gary's face sunk a little, "Oh, right." He thought for a moment, and then replied "So, how about we do it at eight or so?"

"Yeah, that would probably work." From there the conversation varied dramatically, from sports to battling to television and back, racing across anything we could think of for the next two hours. And then it was time to take the stage. When it was all said and done, only about fifty people would be graduating with a license, diploma, and Pokémon.

There we were. All forty-eight of us lined up behind the doors leading to the stadium stage, where the principle was giving his address to the crowd. I could hear his voice echo through the stadium, but couldn't actually make out a word he was saying. And then he called out the names. It was time to go out and face the crowd. "Bianca Aethus," I decided to focus upon the person being called when it came time to go out. It kept my mind off the crowd before me. Bianca strode out across the stage, her faded jeans brushing against the stadium floor and the sleeves of her brown coat moving with the rhythm of her pace as she walked. "Elisha Ambrose," I wanted to shut my eyes, but I had to cringe with them open. I hate my full name. It just sounds way too girly. I stare up at a screen as I walk, focusing more on my image than the crowd. It's always best to stick with the familiar. My muscular arms were covered by my long, grey jacket. My black hair was tucked away under a white baseball cap, and I pulled down the bill a little further in case my composure broke a little. I was grateful to see that it was holding up.

And so it went, focusing in on the name of a classmate, thinking over the memories of the best to avoid the present. I remembered events from the last seven years, and realized that it was all about to end. For better or worse, this was the last I would see of some of them. Of course, Gary appeared the most confident of any of us, giving a small wave to the crowd as he walked out. He didn't bother to cover up his brown hair, and probably couldn't have anyways. It was pretty spiky, and he probably didn't have a hat that could fit on it anyways. Eventually the names came to an end, and the Professor himself came to the stage to give his address.

"Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Professor Oak, director of the Pallet Laboratory and governor of the town. I have come here for a truly special purpose today, and one of the highlights of my job. These young men and women we are honoring today have worked towards their dream for many, many years and have finally arrived at the end of one path, and the start of one much larger. The journey will be different for all. Some will choose to become researchers, others the workers that keep the nation together, others soldiers in the army. Regardless, every journey is equally important and difficult in its own way. They will encounter new allies, as well as new rivals. Challenges that we can't even imagine may arise in the next generation, and they must be prepared to deal with those as well. There will be moments of immense joy and sore misfortune before them, and I wish them all the best. But at the same time, I know they can all succeed if they keep their focus on who they are, where they came from, and where they are going. Everything else is just another variable."


	2. P1C1

Chapter One: Assignment

I pushed my way through the crowds of people, really just wanting to be out of there. I can normally handle crowds if I'm just a member of the group with nothing to single me out. But that doesn't mean I like it. There was really only one person here I wanted to talk to anyways, and they would understand if I left now and talked later. Besides, I had to go half-way across town and back in about an hour. You can't do that if you sit around wasting time.

Just as I was almost out of the crowd, I heard someone yelling behind me. "Hey, Eli wait up!" I turned around to see Gary pushing his way through the swarm of people behind me, and he paused to catch his breath for a moment before he spoke again. "So, aren't you heading over to the lab with us?"

I sighed, and kept walking as he tried to match my pace. "Look, I already said I was going. I just have to stop by the dojo and take care of something before hand," I replied.

He shrugged and kept on walking in silence for a minute or so. "Why couldn't you do it after the meeting at the lab?"

I smiled a little, "Well, I have two reasons." Gary nodded to signify I could go on, "The first is that the Professor will probably take a while to get out of the school and back to his lab. Wasting time sitting around isn't exactly my idea of a good time. The second is that while wasting my time, sitting around watching you get on Bianca's nerves can be entertaining, I don't particularly want to deal with it today."

"More like you don't want to deal with testifying at the murder trial," Gary responded.

I smiled. Leave it to Gary to joke about felonies. "That too," I laughed. We walked on in silence, not talking for the mile-long trip. Talking slows me down, and I really didn't want to be late to the meeting. Normally being late does nothing to improve the mood of a meeting. In Gary's case, he was just trying to keep up. It's not that he's out of shape –he's not- it's just that I walk "fast enough to attract all the female Rapidash in Kanto," as Gary put it. I just see no point in wasting time if I don't have to. Today I'd already spent a few hours waiting for the tests to get done. I didn't want to add anything more.

When we got to the dojo, Gary paused to catch his breath while I went ahead towards the doors. The building itself had a concrete exterior with as little to mark it as possible. All there was to signify the purpose of the building was a simple, wooden sign over the door that read "Pallet Blade Dojo: School of Fencing." We honestly didn't want every little kid in town coming over to try to stab something with a sword, so we didn't make any efforts to advertise. If you cared enough about it, you would probably know someone who would tell you about the place.

Unfortunately, the door was locked. I hadn't exactly realized that anyone with a key would've been at the graduation tests and would probably be walking slower than I was. As that sat in, I glanced down at my watch. It was already 5:15, and I didn't have any time at all to wait around in front of the building while the Professor and my mom waited, so I would come back later tonight after my battle with Gary. Unfortunately, the trip had just been a waste of time. I jogged back over to Gary, who was leaning against the concrete walls of the building. "Come on, we're going to the lab."

Gary stood up, and began running to catch up. "Done already?" he asked. I just shook my head and kept walking. I really didn't want to talk about it.

The walk back to the lab took a bit longer than the walk to the dojo, even though the distance was slightly shorter. The gradual release of people from the school was almost over by that time, and cars and pedestrians were everywhere. By the time we got to the lab, it was already 6:00. Despite the fact we were probably late, I couldn't help but slow down and stare up at the building. Whenever I saw it, which is pretty much daily, I can't help but feel impressed by it. The Professor's lab was easily the largest structure in Pallet, and that's just the main building. The compound behind it stretched out for miles and occupied pretty much the entire north-east corner of the town. If the size alone wasn't impressive, it was simply the fact that every part of the building's outside was [I]meant[/I] to look impressive. The entire front side of the building was incredibly shiny stainless steel that reflected anyone who walked by it perfectly. In the very center was a large doorway with the words "Oak Laboratory" imprinted above it in large, black lettering. The entire display gave the effect that something important happened inside the building.

However, my attention soon found itself elsewhere. Bianca was outside the doors with a generally murderous look in her brown eyes. She was tapping her foot on the ground, arms crossed across her coat and a scowl on her face. I had a pretty good idea of what she was mad about as well. Gary and I exchanged nervous glances, and then walked towards her. It's not like we could get in the building any other way. She glared at us as we approached, but didn't speak until we were within a few feet.

"Where have you been?" she hissed out, even though it was pretty obvious there wasn't an answer she would tolerate.

"We were running an errand at the dojo, but got delayed by the crowds on the way back," I replied.

"You do realize that I've been waiting here for half an hour, right?" she went on, disregarding my answer.

At that point, I just walked past her and went inside. Given free reign, we probably would've been out there for another hour. Besides, it wasn't like anyone had died from the incident. And I really didn't want to go through the rather tiresome process of getting yelled at. Within a few seconds, Gary had followed me through the glass doors, and Bianca reluctantly followed soon after, but made it clear she didn't want to. At the entrance to the lab, the receptionist nodded at us as we came through, probably aware of where we were going and used to seeing us here anyways. The inside of the lab wasn't quite as impressive as the inside, and the dominant move was actually chaos. Aides ran through the hallways to and from the various departments, each of them rushing something critical to somewhere else. It wasn't easy keeping the lab operating, and these people knew that fact all too well.

The professor's office wasn't particularly far from the entrance to the building, and it took us less than a minute to get there. We paused at the doorway, unsure of what the proper way to ask permission to enter the professor's office was. Being late, we really didn't want to start this off on a bad note. "We," referring to Bianca and I. Gary just went up and opened the door, leaving us to follow him in.

The professor's office was a smaller room, just large enough to hold a medium-sized bookshelf, the Professor's desk, and a few chairs on the other side of it. The truly remarkable part was the view behind it. The office was on the rear edge of the building, and a large window was built in place of a wall at the back of the office. On the other side of the glass was the meadow area, where one of the largest herds of plain's animals in Kanto lived. The only other place in the region where one could see Rhyhorn and Girafarig living just like they used to in the wild was the Safari Zone on the other side of the country.

The Professor glanced up from the report on his desk, and waved his hand to tell us to sit down, which we did. The Professor very rarely called us to his office for a meeting, and when he did it was generally important. He sat staring at his report for another minute or so, and then typed something into his computer before he finally turned back to us, and folded his hands in front of him to signify his attention was on us.

"First off, I want to congratulate you on your success today, but you probably know that is not why I called you here," he stated. "I called you here for two things. The first you were probably expecting, the second you probably were not." He paused for a moment as he cleared his throats. "The first item is that I would like to give you these." He put three Pokéballs on the desk in front of him, making sure to place them in front of the right aide. "These contain the Pokémon you have been taking care of for the past few years that have now become your starters."

We each tried to thank him, but he held up his hand to signal that he wasn't done yet. "As you are receiving these tonight, you will not be receiving them with the rest of the graduating students tomorrow. In order to avoid the uproar from the group that you received your starter a day early, I have an assignment for you for the next day or two to get you out of Pallet and help get your Pokémon training careers started."

He shut his eyes and paused for a moment before continuing. "I am expecting a very, very important package to arrive from the Plateau tomorrow in Viridian. While some of my senior aides have volunteered to retrieve it, I have left the job open to you. Along the way you may catch more Pokémon to add to your team, and bond further with your starters, this time as their trainer. Are there any questions this far?" We all shook our heads no. I did have quite a few questions, but I didn't expect to get a brief answer to any of them, and I'd probably figure it out later. "Good, I expect you all to be here at six o'clock tomorrow morning with supplies for the day in order to make it Viridian before nightfall. I have already notified your guardians about this, and all legal issues have been cleared up. I look forwards to seeing you tomorrow, and I'm sorry about the short notice, but the League isn't particularly good with informing leaders when supplies will arrive."

With that, we all stood, thanked the Professor, and left the room as he went back to his computer. Once we were all outside, Gary shut the door and we stood there in the hallway. I was still holding the Pokéball in my hand; still in disbelief I was holding it. Gary was tossing his up in the air, staring down the hallway, his mind elsewhere. Bianca had already put hers on her belt and was looking at the two of us. "So, we're the lucky ones who get to run off and fetch something for the Professor, right?" she asked, her voice half-way between serious and sarcastic. I couldn't honestly tell what she meant by that, whether she was expressing displeasure or gratitude, so I just nodded my head. Gary caught his Pokéball and stared over at her.

"I have no idea if that was sarcasm or not, but if it was the universe is in serious trouble," he stated. Bianca glanced at him with an incredulous look that would have shut me up instantly, but Gary continued, "What? I mean it says in the Book of Endings that when the unpleasant one mocks the world, the heavens will open and the trumpets will-"

"Alright, I think we get the picture," Bianca was making an expression that surprised me more than anything else that day. She was almost smiling. Her lip was slightly upturned and wasn't necessarily a sign of happiness, but it was an actual emotion. "Good night. I'll see you guys up here in a few hours." With that, she walked down the hallway towards the door. She certainly wasn't skipping, but there was some sort of renewed energy in her step.

As Gary and I stared down the hall, Gary voiced our thoughts perfectly. "Now, I'm scared."

It took me a few minutes to get home, but I think I can safely skip over that. I wasn't particularly worried about my mom freaking out over my absence. I now that makes her sound like a horrible person, but it's not like neither of us had ever stayed later than intended at the lab. Although to be fair, it was normally her. Right before I opened the door, I remembered someone. I reached down to my belt, and unclipped the Pokéball that held Marine, my new Squirtle. I hit the button in the middle, causing the red and white orb to swell a little. I tossed the ball in the air, catching it as it came down. At about the top of the balls ascent, it burst open, with a beam of red light coming from the opening between the halves. As it neared the ground, the light began to take the shape of a Squirtle, and when the light faded the Pokémon was left in its place. I must admit, Squirtle isn't exactly a common Pokémon outside of the seas between Pallet Town –itself a sleepy supply center for Viridian- and the mostly abandoned Cinnabar Island. In other words, it wasn't common anywhere.

Anyways, the blue, upright turtle only came up to my knees, and the curly tail and happy expression on his face just screamed cuteness. I normally don't care about that kind of stuff, but I smiled. The fact that I was now his trainer and he was my Pokémon was only starting to sink in. I'd only been used to handling the personality-filled reptile as a friend, although I was fairly sure he viewed himself as the boss in the relationship. I had no idea what to do now that I technically owned him? Was I supposed to be his boss or something? Marine settled the issue for now by thumping his tail against the door to signal that he wanted in, and my mom opened it less than a minute later.

At age 35, my mom was fairly young to have a fifteen-year-old child, but this wasn't ever discussed. In fact, I'm still not sure of many of the details concerning my birth at all, aside from the accident. That aside, she always wore the same outfit almost every day; a white shirt that doubled as a lab coat and a pair of dark jeans. There wasn't much need to be formal at the lab. Other than that, the only thing really worth mentioning would be the eyes. They were silver, and almost seemed to shine abnormally bright in the moonlight. She brushed her black hair over her shoulder shortly after opening the door, and let Marine and I in. Marine immediately rushed forwards, wanting to greet some of my mom's Pokémon he'd gotten to know from his occasional trips home with me. I'm not entirely sure if he realized it yet, but this was his home now, too.

As Squirtle began to eagerly talk with Lucario, who seemed much less in the conversation than the water-type, my mom and I sat down at the table. There was some food set out that we ate, but forgive me if I can't exactly remember what after however long it's been. Regardless, I remember the conversation fairly well.

"Good job on the exam," my mom began.

"Thanks, but it wasn't too-"

"No, that was an extremely hard challenge. The professor himself selected possibly the most difficult exam in the system to give to you, and he wanted more than anyone to see you pass. Believe me, I'm serious about the praise," she interrupted. I just sat back trying to think over that. The professor himself had given me what he considered to be the hardest challenge? I couldn't think of why he would give it to me, and not someone he had more confidence in. Perhaps he'd wanted me to fail, or maybe he was doing it for other reasons. I decided I would have to ask him later.

"Yeah, I didn't really see the Hypnosis and Dream Eater coming," I confessed. "Not to mention the crowds."

My mother nodded, understanding exactly what I was referring to. "Well, it's been a while since I was a novice trainer, but I don't think I was thrilled the first time I battled in front of an audience. I still get a little nervous whenever I speak to a crowd. I think I can safely say that no one enjoys the crowds. In fact, some of the greatest men and women in the world will do everything they can to avoid public appearances. Trust me; stage fright is nothing to be ashamed of."

Her pep talk reassured me a bit, but at the same time it made things worse. There was a problem with words. They took on the power of what they described, and that was often. There had to be some sort of value behind the letters to make it worth something.

"Yeah, you're probably right," I said. I tried to make it sound convincing, but I'm not entirely sure she fell for it. She was abnormally keen at seeing through things, and I wasn't the best liar to be honest. Whether she noticed it or not, the concern left her face and she went back to eating. By this time, Marine had already woken up Gloom, and the two were arguing about something. I hoped Marine learned his lesson last time and wouldn't push it too far with the grass type. It wasn't fun taking a poisoned Squirtle to the Pokémon Center.

I wanted to talk to my mom about so many things, but unfortunately time was running out. Gary had wanted to meet me at eight, and it was already seven-thirty. It took me about thirty minutes to get where he would be waiting, so I had to leave soon. When I finally got the food cleared off of my plate, I stood up and thanked my mom for dinner. When she asked where I was going, I told her Gary and I wanted to meet up. She hesitated before approving as if there was something more she wanted to say, but eventually let me walk out the door, Squirtle in tow.

It was still chilly in the evenings. May isn't exactly summer yet in the Pallet area, and temperatures did tend to drop as the sun went down. I didn't notice very much, but Marine certainly did. Squirtle were native to warmer waters, and their bodies took on the temperature of the air or water around them. Marine ran on ahead of me, occasionally trying to run on two legs, but frequently tripping and falling back down to two. I was walking slower than normal, which was still fast, thinking about things. Mostly I thought about the upcoming battle. Gary's Bulbasaur had a natural type advantage, not to mention a more skilled trainer. However, Squirtle was a naturally faster Pokémon and better at taking hits. But that wouldn't save me if I didn't have a strategy. The problem was, I couldn't exactly be sure it would work. This wasn't a simulation where the opponent would always operate by a certain method. This was much more real and unpredictable.

However, as the walk went on, my thoughts began to drift to the next day. Over the next few days I would be given the chance to encounter and catch some of the first Pokémon on my journey. What would they be? I mentally made a note of every common Pokémon in the Viridian City and Route One areas, and began to weigh the strengths and weaknesses of all of them. I was almost done by the time we reached the hill.

"The hill" was an elevated area outside of the Professor's lab. From the top, most of the valley that Pallet Town was in could be seen stretching out. It wasn't exactly a big city, with a population barely reaching into the thousands, but it was fairly important. The Professor's lab was arguably the most important in the Republic, only rivaled by the Safari Zone in Fuchsia and Silph Co. in Saffron. Most of the town was connected in one way or another to the massive complex that stretched out just in front of the hill. It was an amazing view of my life; it was unlikely there would be many, if any, major events in the life of anyone born in Pallet that would occur outside of the city. Of course, tonight wasn't exactly a time to reminisce. I glanced up at the top of the hill, and saw the silhouette of Gary waiting for me.

"Nice night for a battle isn't it?" he called down. I nodded, although he probably couldn't see it in the dark, and ran up to meet him. He had a black jacket on over his normal white shirt, and was tossing his Pokéball up in the air repeatedly. I knew him well enough to know that meant he was nervous, excited, or both. Probably both in this case. "Well, let's get this started. You lose if you withdraw your Pokémon or it faints. We shouldn't need a ref."

I was a bit more worried. Pokémon battling was a dangerous sport to begin with, and doing it without a ref just increased the risks, I wanted to point that out, but didn't see a point in doing it. "Yeah, let's-"

"Are you two really going to battle without anyone watching?" a familiar voice interrupted. We turned down the hill to see someone walking up, faintly illuminated by a fire beside them. 

"Well, men don't exactly need all of the sissy rules you do, but if you insist you can watch," Gary called out, and Bianca frowned as she reached the top of the hill. Whatever had gotten into her earlier had clearly passed.

"I, personally, wouldn't want to start my journey by killing my Pokémon, but I guess that's your choice," she replied.

"Gary, just let her ref," I pleaded. I agreed with Bianca on this one. Battling new Pokémon without anyone reffing it was just an accident waiting to happen.

Gary shrugged, and Bianca walked over to the halfway point between Gary and I. "Alright, this will be a one on one battle between Gary's Bulbasaur and Eli's Squirtle. A Pokémon is considered unable to battle if it doesn't move for ten seconds or faints. Additionally, if a Pokémon is withdrawn it is considered unable to battle. Are there any questions? If not, you may begin," Bianca stated.

"Alright, Ivy let's go for a Vine whip!" Gary commanded. Bulbasaur raised one of her vines and slammed it into the ground directly in front of Marine, who was barely out of range. As Marine jumped back, I began to think. The chances of Bulbasaur having an attack with much range were low, and that could definitely be used to my advantage.

"Jump back and use Bubble," I shouted. Marine immediately jumped back even further and shot out a steady stream of bubbles from his mouth, which was beginning to foam up with air and water. As the bubbles were released, they began to drift towards the grass-type on the other side of the field, but they weren't racing there by any means.

Gary glanced across the battlefield, "Destroy the bubbles with Vine Whip." Bulbasaur lashed out again, this time striking through the bubbles floating over the field and causing most of them to pop. The ones that did reach the dinosaur did pathetically little. Ranged attacks weren't going to do much either. "Sorry, Eli but you're going to have to do better than that. Avoiding my attacks is just wasting my valuable time."

I realized he was probably right. I wasn't going to end this from a distance, so Squirtle was going to have to go into direct fire. "Rapid Spin forwards," I ordered. Marine looked up at me strangely, not entirely trusting my authority yet. I'm not sure I would either if someone ordered me to rush into a super effective attack. I nodded to signify I was serious, and Marine withdrew into his shell and spun forwards just as I began to wonder if this was really a good idea.

Gary looked up curiously, trying to figure out what I was trying to do. "I have no idea what you're trying to do here, but it was a mistake. Ivy, grab him with Vine Whip to show him how it's done," he called. Bulbasaur extended her vines out towards Squirtle, but they were unable to hold the spinning water type, and were partially shredded in the process. Bulbasaur immediately withdrew her vines and held them up to survey the damage. I almost gagged. There were large tears and scrapes on them from trying to hold the spinning Pokémon; some leaking a strange green substance that I suspected was blood. While it probably wouldn't be fatal, it definitely was painful and would probably require serious medical attention quickly.

Bianca stood there staring at the carnage, her face momentarily drained of color. She was biting her lip, and seemed completely shocked by the events. Gary almost immediately unclipped his Pokéball from his belt and withdrew the Bulbasaur. Ironically, he was the one who had almost succeeded at keeping his composure. "Alright, Eli I guess you took this one. I'll see you both tomorrow," he blurted out before running towards the lab as fast as he could go. I looked back up at Bianca, who still seemed rattled by the incident.

"Are you going to be alright?" I asked.

She was still staring at the drops of greenish liquid on the ground. "I-I'm fine. J-just leave me alone, OK?" she stammered out. For some reason, the injury had rattled her even worse than Gary, but I didn't want to push the issue.

"Alright, I guess I'll see you tomorrow then," I said uneasily. I turned around and started for home, motioning for Marine to follow.


	3. P1C2

**Hey all four people who clicked on my fic. I wasn't dead. Just camping. Some language here. On with the fic.**

Chapter Three: Greyscale Revolution

_Gary._

Yeah, so I wasn't off to a great start. I'd almost killed my first Pokémon on the first night of owning it because of rookie mistake. I was probably never going to hear the end of that one. Not to mention it was earlier than six o'clock and I had been awake for over an hour. I couldn't remember the last time I could say that. On a more positive note, I'd gotten off to a great start with nutritious Combee Crunch, complete with all the needed vitamins and minerals to get you going in the day. As I lumbered out towards the agreed meeting place, my pack weighing down on my back. I generally wanted to just go back to sleep. I started to doubt the cereal's effectiveness. Never trust high TV salesmen.

Then again, a lot of that was my fault anyways. However I justified it, that battle was a bad idea. There would've been plenty of time to do it in Viridian, but I had to rush into it with absolutely no training. And did I mention it was the night _before_ I had to wake up at four-thirty in the morning. What could've possibly gone wrong with that idea? On a lighter note, Ivy wasn't hurt too badly. He could use his vines again within a few days if everything went well. It was still almost a week without being able to do anything but Tackle, but that would be alright. I could catch another Pokémon pretty quickly, and there wasn't really a rush to train up now. Honestly, I didn't even have a reason to get stronger.

That bothered me a little. Gramps told me that some time ago, there used to be an open challenge across the nations. Trainers would challenge the leaders of the various cities in attempts to gain a symbol signifying their victory. If they could gain enough symbols, they could challenge the Pokémon League itself, and possibly become the next champion. And then came Ariel Day. About fifty years ago, a rogue trainer had captured the storm spirits of the land –a forbidden and illegal act. He proceeded to crush the local leaders. He made it all the way to the league before the champion defeated him in a battle, and forced him to release the storm gods. After that, the League had decided that rogue trainers wandering around and seeking to further their power was simply too much of a security risk. The Champion was still the strongest trainer in the region; but now that was determined by battles between the highest ranking generals in Kanto and Johto whenever the Champion decided to step down. The last time that happened was shortly before I was born. Champion Brendan stepped down and Lance had won the battle. He was still Champion when I left Pallet.

Tangent aside, there was no reason to train anymore. Strength was unneeded, advancement was nearly impossible, and training opportunities were scarce. It was actually kind of depressing, considering that Gramps had been one of the best trainers' alive back in his day. It supposedly it ran in the blood. Yeah, so nice to know that even my blood is out to ruin my life.

Going back to the actual story, it was a pleasant morning. Provided you're a ghost type, or course. It was still mostly dark outside, and the sun hadn't warmed up the day yet. A light fog covered the ground, slightly obscuring vision and making it even drearier outside. All that was missing from the wonderful scene was rain. Thankfully, it was a rather short walk from my house to the lab. Eli could've probably run it –sorry, "walked" it- in under fifteen minutes. Still, I wasn't exactly in a "walk quickly mood." It wasn't like I was very eager for the journey either. As far as I was concerned, it would just be baby-sitting Bianca and Eli as they ran around catching every useless Pokémon in sight like kids in a candy shop. I would probably just catch something to show to Gramps and then wait to fill in my team until I could get my hands on something decent.

About twenty-five minutes or so after I left my house, I got to the doors of the lab. Bianca and Eli were already waiting for me, as expected. Eli was wearing his typical grey jacket and white baseball cap, with a tan backpack carrying his supplies. I noticed it was larger than mine, which irritated me slightly. Being older and taller, I was always slightly annoyed when he showed off how much stronger he was. But I would always have him in the looks department, so I was never too annoyed. Miss Dreary was there as well, generally adding to the grey dreariness of the morning. Seriously, she has some sort of a refusal to wear anything involving bright colors. She probably even washed her jeans several times before she would wear them, just to prevent any sort of vibrant color from being on her person. Add in her grey tennis shoes, brown coat, and grey eyes and you get an outfit as dull as her personality.

The strange part was, it actually looked like Eli and Bianca had been talking about something before I walked up, and they weren't angry at each other. I considered pointing it out, but decided against it. Nothing was worth arguing at this time in the morning with a long hike to go. I trudged up beside Eli, grunting out something that could be interpreted as everything from "Hey, how's it going?" to "I like Pancakes," and "The sky is falling." Eli apparently understood it as "Let's go!"

"Alright guys are you ready?" he asked eagerly. However he could be that awake before six was completely beyond me.

"Wait a minute," I objected. "I have some extra weight I need to shove onto you guys." I dropped my pack down with a "thud," not really caring if I broke anything. I unzipped one of the pouches, and pulled out ten Pokéballs. I tossed five to each of them and explained, "A gift from Gramps."

With that, they talked a little about something (How the heck would I remember what? It was six in the morning.) and put the Pokémon balls on their belt. After that, they set off towards the exit of town, not even asking if I was ready. They probably knew what the answer would be.

It didn't take us long to get out of Pallet. Bianca quickly fell into silence after we departed, ending her brief period of social activity. At least some things were still working normally in the world. Eli was walking ahead of the group alone; probably bored with the pace we were going. That left me back with Bianca, who thankfully wasn't interested in talking. I don't mind teasing her, but if had to deal with her for the next few days I did not want to start with a knife in my chest. That could've make things a bit more difficult.

When we got close to the Pallet Town limits, Eli was waiting for us at the sign. Thankfully, by this point the sun had decided to wake up and do some work for the day. Eli also slowed down to match the pace at the back of the group for once. Apparently he'd finally realized that I had the form we needed to pick up the package, so it was kind of useless to run ahead. It's so nice to have control over the situation.

As we walked, a debate of sorts arose between Bianca and Eli. I chose not to get involved for reasons stated earlier. That and I didn't really care. They were talking about how much time it would take them to get to Viridian, how much time they could spare to look for Pokémon , whether they should try to catch the Rattata that ran by or focus more on the Pidgey in the air, et cetera. Well, mostly Eli was talking. Bianca just listened, and gave periodic input. The strange thing was, it was almost friendly. _Almost_. It wasn't entirely unstrained, but Bianca actually seemed to be contributing information without being forced. _With me nearby_. I made a mental note to take her to a psychiatrist when we got back.

Ironically, the discussion in front of me was loud enough to scare away most of the Pokémon in the surrounding area, so we made pretty good time to Viridian, and would probably arrive the next afternoon. I never did get an explanation as to why Gramps couldn't get someone with a car to take us, but the walk wasn't really that bad. They hadn't even made an attempt to catch anything by the time we got to lunch.

Speaking of which, "lunch," when traveling is normally closer to a quick break where one takes their pack off and eats a granola bar or two while drinking a bottle of water than anything you're thinking of. It takes all of ten minutes if you do it right.

By the time lunch rolled around, I finally got into the conversation. I was the only one in the group who had ever actually been to Viridian City seriously, the job "lab aide" pretty much means "doesn't get out much". Well, Bianca doesn't count. Even if she had lived there, it had been about seven years. And the first thing I'd learned about dealing with her: never bring up Viridian City. Most people ask her about it when they first learn she was born there. Most back off after they realize she doesn't want to talk about it. I had persisted. She hates me. Anyways, Eli asked me what the city was like.

"Well," I started, "It's about twice as big as Pallet Town, and much more official looking. There are government buildings everywhere and quite a few military areas in the city. Really, only the East side of the city has many people living there at all. The only major things in the city would be the Gym, Diglett's Cave, and the Spatial Monastery. I'm sure you know about at least those three." I stopped explaining and ripped open another granola bar. Seriously, how much did they want me to say about the place?"

"What's the Gym?" Eli asked.

I sighed, forgetting that not many people actually cared very much about the place. "It used to be a Pokémon League Gym back before the storm war. After the war it was shut down like all of the rest, but it was opened again about twenty years ago as a training area for trainers. There's not really a Gym Leader there anymore, but it's still supposedly a nice place to train," I answered. I'd actually forgotten about the gym, and wasn't quite sure why I'd thought of it as one of the three most important places in Viridian. It had been at least three years since I'd been there, and then I hadn't even cared that much.

Bianca slowly nodded her head. "My brother was almost champion of the gym once. And then," she stared up at the trees for a moment, "we moved." Once again, I had to stop and almost stare at Bianca. Her face was relatively stern as usual. But there was something else. Something in the eyes. I couldn't place it, but I don't think I'd ever seen her eyes look like that. But before I could really believe it, it was gone. "We'd best get moving," she said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Shortly after, we packed up and left again. We didn't stop for another hour or so, when we took a water break. As I went to take care of some business, I heard a slight rustling in the trees above me. I instinctually glanced up, eyeing the trees. There wasn't any immediate follow-up, but one thing was fairly likely. There was a Pokémon up there. "Hey guys," I called out. "I think I found something."

"What?" Bianca replied.

"Well, I can't exactly tell, but I think it might be a Pokémon," I shouted back. I don't really remember why I decided to let them know. It would have made the trip faster if we hadn't. Maybe I sensed something about the Pokémon. Maybe I just wanted to get the capture over with and spend time in Viridian training. Whatever my reason was, I did. Bianca and Eli were underneath the tree in seconds.

We stood in silence for a few moments, no one really sure of what to do now. "Now what do we do?" Eli asked. Bianca frowned, and I turned around to face him. Even if there was a Pokémon up there, what exactly were we supposed to do? We were interrupted by a weak call from above us.

After living in Pallet for fifteen years, you learn certain things. One of them is everything about Pidgey. Being the most common species in and around the town, bar humans, most residents got to know them. Being a kid obsessed with Pokémon for a while, I had learned everything. So, don't be surprised if I could tell a lot from the cry. Like the fact that it was an infant. And that it was starving. Put those together, and you reach the most likely explanation for the matter: trainers.

The advent of the Pokéball had changed the world. Rule number one of history: no change is ever entirely good. One of the very few downfalls was right above me. Many times a trainer would catch a mother Pokémon, and never know about the babies. This sounds terrible, but think logically for a moment. Good trainers didn't really care much about their captures. Attachment was never a good thing, since any serious battle could end in death. And a good trainer would have a good deal of serious battles. Even though the gym system had died, battling still went on as a popular hobby. But what can I say? It's called the circle of life, and Pidgey weren't about to go extinct any time soon.

Arceus, I'm terrible with tangents. Back to the story. Alright, now we know what we're dealing with. Instead of having an unknown creature in the tree, we have a dying baby Pidgey. Great. Now we've still got no way to get it out, _and_ I'm compelled to catch the weakest Pokémon I could find. Remind me why I called them over again?

So, back to the standing in silence thing. "Well, we could try to climb up," Eli proposed. I stared at him, and glanced back to the tree. There weren't any branches on the thing we could use for climbing. "Oh, right." More silence. I hate silence.

"Well, unless anyone has an idea as to how we do something useful here, we might as well go," Bianca begrudgingly grumbled her consent, but Eli still stared at the tree. "Well?" I asked.

"I think I have an idea," he murmured.

The "S-I-L" word returns. "And?" I growled impatiently.

"It might not work, but,"

"Just do it already," Bianca and I snapped at the same time. Wow. I don't think we'd ever done that before in fifteen years. It didn't comfort me.

"Fine," Eli sighed. "Marine, go." His Squirtle appeared at his side. "Alright, I want you to use Water Gun on the ground to shoot yourself up to that branch," he gestured upwards.

"Squir, Squirtle?" the turtle said, pointing its tiny arm up in the air. I couldn't tell where it was pointing, and I'm pretty sure Eli couldn't either. That, or he'd become a turtle whisperer in the last few hours.

"Yes, that one." _Right_, the one a few feet up and made of wood. That one.

Squirtle gave a clumsy salute and began to charge a Water Gun. After a few seconds, he unleashed it at the ground and rocketed up. At the peak of his flight, he realized something. He was in the air. I might have the advantage of a few years of study on the matter, but I think most people realize one simple fact. Squirtle can't fly.

Marine's expression showed that he'd come to the same realization. He began shouting his name and flailing his arms wildly as he started to fall back to the ground, his objective entirely forgotten. As luck would have it, he did happen to find the nest.

He took that down with him too.

Eli rushed forwards to catch his Squirtle. I stood transfixed, somewhere between apathy, an instinctual need to catch one of the baby Pidgey –there were multiple falling- and a strong desire to say "I told you so." I chose option d) stand in shock while the mind numbly processes what to do.

Bianca dived forwards to help, and wound up catching the now empty nest and a Pidgey that had fallen with it, not letting it suffer any further harm. Eli managed to pull one of the Pidgey out of its state of 32 meters per second squared, and almost caught Squirtle. Almost.

The blue turtle landed on its back, the shell absorbing most of the impact. He seemed jarred, but not injured at first glance. That left one more Pidgey. I looked up to see if I'd missed it, and was immediately greeted with a view of brown feathers in my face as I fell back from the impact.

"Next time we need to practice landings," I groaned, and pushed the bird onto my chest, causing the Pidgey to whimper in pain. I gently slid him off of my body, and pulled myself to my knees to survey the damage. It definitely wasn't as bad as Ivy, but it wasn't pretty. Her wing, and I could identify her as a female from the markings on her head, was bent back at a strange angle, but there didn't appear to be any marks on the surface. She was probably in pain, but not going to bleed to death. In fact, if she was kept in a suspended state, she probably would get out just fine.

"Do you want to come with me?" I asked, and immediately bit my lip out of anger. Why had I asked that? The goal here was to find a Pokémon that could actually do something, not build some sort of a handicapped Pokémon Olympics Squad. Unfortunately, she chirped in a way that probably meant yes. I started to pick her up to bring her out into the forest, but couldn't bring myself to do it. Her chirping was almost musical, upbeat in a way that seemed almost unreal. I wasn't going to leave her out to die, even if it cost me some valuable training time. I pulled a Pokéball out from the side of my pack and held it over the Pidgey.

"I'm going to call you Siren."

-SoV—

Alright, before anyone out there accuses me of being too weak, I'd like to reinforce I have a limit. I won't deal with pathetic bugs. Apparently, I'm the only one in the group who grasped another basic fact of the world. Bug Pokémon are terrible. Common weaknesses combined with generally poor power and bulk leads to a train wreck of evolution that only survives due to numbers. For trainers, they're just about useless.

Maybe more useful than an injured Pidgey and Bulbasaur though.

Regardless, as soon as camp was set up, Eli walked into the forest with a Pokéball in hand to catch something. Bianca and I just stared after him. Bianca shrugged, and sat down in front of a tree, book in hand. Before she could open it, I realized something. It could take Eli hours to find something out there with the noise he was likely to make. That and he wasn't very good with noticing details, even very large ones. Another key fact about the world: Bianca and I don't do very well together, especially with no one else around. Even if she wanted to read her book, I hate silence. Given even another fifteen minutes, I would probably wind up starting a fight. Of course, I had other options. I cleared my throat.

"So, how's life going?" She glanced up at me, muttered something about following Eli, and walked into the forest. Problem solved. With those two away, I had some free time. I subconsciously pressed something on my belt, and Siren appeared alongside Ivy.

"Alright, let's get you two fixed up." I pulled a few bandages and some gauze out of my backpack and set to work. I found a small stick somewhere in the clearing, and used it to make a crude splint for Siren. I also reapplied Ivy's bandages, but this took less time since I actually had some idea what I was doing.

I glanced down at my watch. They had been gone for thirty minutes. I probably had time to take care of some personal business. Glancing quickly around in nervousness, I pulled a red electronic device from my backpack. A Pokéball symbol was etched into the front, with "Pokédex 3.5" engraved beneath it in black lettering. Altogether, it was a little smaller than a normal laptop. I reached into a side pocket of my backpack, and pulled out a grey computer disk with no markings. I manipulated it nervously for a moment, watching the light reflect onto nearby trees as I twisted the disk. Finally I got up the nerve to put it in.

The Pokédex came to life, the screen beginning to glow as the device loaded. When it finally came up, I scrolled down the options list, until I reached the last one. "Cam99OpDwn4-10-99." It wasn't much to go by, but it confirmed what I'd suspected. It was a camera recording from a few years back, around the time I had been born. I took out the small scrap of paper I had found with it. "21:52" was hastily scratched onto it in ink that had since lightened considerably until the note was almost unreadable. I took a deep breath, and pushed my finger down over the play button.

"Hey, Gary!" Eli shouted out in the distance. I swore under my breath, and slid the device back into my backpack. The video would have to wait until later.

Eli came running –sorry, walking- into the clearing, Bianca struggling to keep up behind him. "We caught some Pokémon," he said, still enthusiastic, but calming down.

"Let me guess, a Weedle?" I replied sarcastically.

He looked minorly hurt, "What's wrong with Weedle?"

I sighed. This was going to be a long evening. "Other than the fact that it's got terrible abilities, even in its final form, lacks any sort of a niche another Pokémon can't do better, and is generally weaker than most every Pokémon ever created by Arceus, I don't know."

Bianca had gotten out of the forest by now, but was still trying to catch her breath. She tried to reply, but her response was constantly broken up by panting.

"What's she saying?" I asked Eli.

He glanced back up at me. "The same could be said about an injured Pidgey."

-SoV—

The rest of the evening went without incident. Or, at least without fatal incident. In fact, there had been no injuries by the time the sun went down. Gramps would be proud. After dinner, Eli went into his tent almost immediately. Bianca leaned up against a tree, reading her book. I couldn't quite make out the title, but it had the silhouette of a Kabutops skeleton on the front. "What're you reading," I asked.

She glared up, clearly annoyed at my question. "It's none of your business." Unfortunately, she didn't stop reading or go into her tent. That surprised me a little. There are quite a few people who get mad for some reason when you ask them what they're reading. I never understood why. But if she wasn't going away, then I had too. I didn't feel like starting a fight; we still had a long way to Viridian and back.

I started to walk out towards the forest. "Where are you going?" Bianca inquired, glancing up from her book.

"Why do you want to know?" I asked. Answering questions with questions annoys people more than asking them what they're reading.

She shrugged, and went back to reading her book. "I just wanted to know."

"Wait, you wanted to know something about me?" I answered with excessive shock. Excessive shock is another one of those things that irritates people.

"If you got killed by a Wild Pokémon, I'd have a hard time explaining it to your grandfather." Her voice was perfectly neutral now, maybe even a bit upbeat. She wasn't irritated. I'd done three things to irritate her, the girl who gets irritated by my presence, and she didn't care. Arceus, she was making my life difficult.

With that, I went back into the forest before my reputation could suffer too much. I guess it was a nice evening. I don't really pay much attention to that kind of thing, but it probably was. Summer nights in South-West Kanto are generally nice, with the various insects coming out to mate, making their chirps and calls. Another thing you get used to by living in Pallet. But I had other things to think about. Namely the CD I was carrying.

There was a room in the lab that no one ever entered. A padlock guarded the door, the key only found in one location, that happened to be right next to the door. But in order to get the key, one had to insert a ten digit password. Fail twice and alarms go off. Strangely enough, no one ever seemed to show interest. Except for me.

The first time I asked him about it, he'd just said it was for records. I didn't buy it. What kinds of records get more security than the lab safe? I'd started paying attention after that, watching whenever he entered his password. Eventually I got a pretty good idea of what it was, but I hadn't acted on it. Until two days ago. I was out late from a meeting with Eli, and most of the people had already left the lab. I walked up to the door as casually as possible, making it look like I was supposed to be there. I inserted the password, thankfully it was correct, and the key dropped out into my hand. A passing aide had stopped me at that time. I'd told him I was on business from Gramps. He bought it, and went on his way, thankfully never reporting it.

The inside of the room was surprisingly bare, with only a file cabinet in the room. It was also locked. In fact, there was only one thing not in the cabinet that Gramps had apparently forgotten to put back in, a single CD with a slip of paper on it. I figured he wouldn't miss it if I gave it back after the trip, and slipped it into my pocket. I hadn't gotten the time to watch it until now.

The Pokedex's light cast strange shadows from the trees, making the night slightly creepy, even for me. A stray cloud moved across the moon, blocking out some of the moonlight and making it even more unnatural. And the forest was silent. All of the bugs had stopped chattering around me, probably because of an intruder, me. But late in the evening when the mind doesn't make that connection, it's just creepy.

I scrolled down to Cam99OpDwn4-10-99, and clicked. The Pokedex paused, the screen darkening until a black and white image was pulled up. It was just an empty room, with the only notable features being the bookshelves on the walls and a large desk. Windows behind the desk looked onto something, but it was hard to tell from the camera. Come to think of it, it looked a lot like Gramps' office. I waited for a minute, but nothing happened.

And then I remembered the sheet of paper. I cursed softly at myself for forgetting, but quickly pulled it out and jumped to the correct time. The office wasn't empty anymore. A younger Gramps was in the room, pacing back and forth in front of the window, periodically stopping to glance out. He looked worried about something, and furious at the same time. He was probably more concerned and angrier than I had ever seen him. He muttered something under his breath, something about a storm perhaps, but I couldn't quite catch it. I made a mental note to scroll back and watch it later.

After about a minute or so of the pacing, someone knocked on the door. Gramps glanced up, and called out for the man to come in. I almost dropped the Pokédex. Champion Lance, well, soon-to-be Champion Lance walked through the door, his signature cape flowing behind him. He gave an awkward bow, and rose up, sarcasm dripping in his voice, "Hello _master_."

Gramps nodded, and motioned for him to sit down. "Lance, I'm quite busy right now. Is there anything you wanted to talk about, or are you wasting my time?"

Lance shifted in his seat, "Well, it's about the project." Gramps motioned to go on. "A few people here were talking, and we decided that we don't like it."

"They can just get their ass off of the island then. Only the devoted have a place in Operation Dawn."

"Oh no, they're devoted. Just not to you," Lance rose to his full, rather impressive height. It was impossible to tell from the camera, but I had a strange suspicion he was smiling.

Gramps banged his fist on the disk, "What the hell is this?" he shouted.

Lance laughed, a slow and evil laugh, as he gestured towards the doorway. Whatever was in it made Gramps gasp in surprise and cower back slightly. "This would be a coup."

**Note: The book referenced is a real book… just adapted. It will have a few allusions to it in the first arc, but it isn't necessary that you have read, or even heard of the book. Or watched the movie for that matter. **


	4. P1C3

**Finally back. Sorry about the wait, but I was busy. Next chapter should be up sooner. Oh, and read Birdboy's fic Pokédex if you get a chance. It's pretty good, and loosely inspired a minor event in the chapter. I did get permission from his to include this. **

1.3: Falling

A strong wind was blowing across Viridian City, whipping my grey scarf into my face as I walked. And contrary to what Gary has likely told you, I am not obsessed with dull colors due to some lack of personality. I just think they look nice. They don't draw undue attention, or lead to any meaningless debates on fashion. Breath is limited. Anything limited should be conserved. That and I do not lack a personality thank you very much. I just have no reason to show it to that prick. Or anyone who wouldn't take it seriously for that matter. And I've found out that very few people are willing to take things seriously.

And this is not one of Gary's tangents. That was needed information to resolve any possible misconceptions you may have that would cloud your ability to understand the story. If I'm going to spend my breath telling it, I might as well make sure that it is heard properly. If I have made things clear, the actual story can resume.

While the last day had been calm, today a fierce wind blew through the city. It wasn't uncommon for Viridian. In fact, intense winds were a frequent occurrence. I'd just forgotten how annoying they were. Even if it was a summer day, it felt like it could've been winter due to wind chill. Or at least late autumn. Possibly October. You should get the point by now.

The streets were slightly less crowded than I remembered. That or the people just looked smaller from my larger height. Both were possible. I was able to make my way through the streets of the West Side of town without much difficulty and at a very nice pace. I'm not as obsessed with speed as Eli, but my time in the city was limited. Ergo, it needed to be conserved. Especially the time I had alone.

Gary and Eli were off at the Pokémart picking up the package. After that they were going to the gym. Personally, I viewed the gym as my brother's domain. I had no business there. My business was all on the west side of the city. As it had always been.

While I walked, I mentally debated with myself as to whether or not to visit a certain location. It was a fair distance out of the way, but not horribly so. That and it almost seemed necessary if I was in Viridian. After all, it was, at some level, the reason I had even come on the stupid errand. It was probably fairly high on the Professor's list of reasons as well. Why else would he send a group of kids over to retrieve his mail when he had several perfectly competent aides with cars? It could've been what he said about getting us out of town, but there were better ways to go about doing that. It was almost certainly something else.

I stopped walking at an intersection. My official destination was straight ahead, but the other one was to the North. I glanced briefly between the two of them, and walked towards the North. The road was much quieter going in that direction. Only residential areas could be reached by heading north, so most of the traffic heading to the bases and Cathedral disappeared. There were still noises, cars roaring in the background, children crying, shouting from street venders, it was just increasingly quieter as it faded into the background. Even then, it still probably would've put Eli off edge. He hadn't left Pallet yet. Viridian wasn't big, but it still dwarfed the town. I wondered if he even knew normal traffic procedures. I shrugged and moved on to other thoughts. He had Gary with him. One of his few redeeming qualities was that he knew about the world, and was surprisingly not obsessively arrogant about it.

Putting it out of my mind, I looked around the street. Viridian City was a blend of memories and new frontier. In some areas the same shops and buildings still presided over the street. Most of them were slightly deteriorated but remained open after several years. Equally many familiar stores were closed, either replaced or a pair of dark windows with a sign hung over the door. I tried to recognize someone for a little while but gave up pretty quickly. It was a big city, and it had been years since I had last been here. Instead I kept on walking, periodically pausing at a location from the past, and mentally kicking myself back into motion. Like it or not, this wasn't just another walk back to my house. Things had changed.

After roughly forty minutes of walking, I found myself outside of the first residential district. The south side of Viridian was mostly made up of businesses, monuments, and military fortifications. A few political areas existed there as well, Viridian being the auxiliary capitol of the continent and all. There just weren't that many and they weren't that important. All of the important decisions were made to the Northwest or in the army buildings. This left the northern area of the town for residential use. When the Kanto government built the city for their capitol, they planned it out methodically. A series of lines ran across the north of the town. These lines were made up of apartment complexes that housed the citizenry. The buildings closer to the city, starting with district one, were made up of bigger buildings that housed almost a thousand people each. Each subsequent district housed a smaller number of wealthier people, until the twelfth district was made up entirely of individual families living in mansions at the edge of the forest. Most of them were government officials. Some were businessmen. And then there were a few others who were officially businessmen or government officials. I was going to see one of those people.

-SoV—

I kept staring up at the house in front of me. I knew that a security guard was probably going to get suspicious soon, but I couldn't leave. It was the largest of the mansion bordering the forest, five stories high and equally enormous in every other way. A number of white stone pillars supported the grey and white structure, making it look like some sort of a classical monument. Ancient, powerful, and proud. The headquarters of an empire. Many would never come close to realizing how accurate that was. Mr. Kyo was the owner of the mansion, as well as various laboratories around the region, as well as the Celadon Game Corner and the Kanto Electric Plant. Between all of this, he was quite wealthy. The mansion in Viridian was just the center of his economic empire. This was the public perception. There was quite a bit of private information as well, but very few living individuals knew about all of that.

I glanced through more of the house's features. My eyes dwelled on a balcony a few floors up for a minute or so. I had almost fallen from that balcony once when I was playing with a friend. A wild Pokémon had caught me as I fell, and my dad let me play with it for years after that. My mom didn't like him so much. When we moved to Pallet, he had to stay behind. It was probably pretty old by now, maybe even dead. I wasn't exactly sure what to think of that. It would probably take some reflection before I made up my mind on the subject. Could I really accept it as dead? Had I already done so?

I noticed a guard moving in my direction out of the corner of my eye. I sighed, and took off in the other direction, cursing my stupidity under my breath. Being recognized was the last thing I needed, and I had known that from the beginning. It was my fault for standing there so long. It was stupid to go there in the first place, with no real reason to do so. But some idiotic part of me that I was normally quite good at keeping caged had taken control. Once again, this could have been prevented, and it was all my damn fault.

"Hey, lady!" The guard shouted out, running somewhere behind me to keep up, but at a much slower pace. "Will you slow down for a second?" Yup. They definitely recognized me. This was bad. I glanced back over my shoulder. The guard was panting, barely keeping within a few hundred feet when my head start was factored in. "The Master's son wished to convey something to you!"

I almost stopped. I hadn't seen Mr. Kyo's son in ages. But I kept running until I was almost out of breath, and well into the residential districts. I looked back then, hands on my knees as I tried to catch my breath from the multi-mile run. The guard was nowhere in sight. He had probably given up miles ago. Once again, I'd been an idiot. I swore at my own stupidity, and glanced down at my watch. I promptly swore again. I had about twenty minutes to reach the restaurant we had agreed to meet at. It happened to be about five miles away. I took a few deep breaths, and ran off again, keeping pace with a string of mental cussing.

-SoV—

"Are you sure you're ready for this?" I glanced across the battling court at Eli took his stance.

"Of course," he replied. He was trying to look confident, but it was fairly easy to deduce that he was very nervous. He naturally knew that I was the superior battler, and would likely win.

Gary nodded on the sidelines. "Alright, Bianca, because of the coin flip you send out the first Pokémon." As if I needed to know that.

I quickly thought things over. I had three Pokémon, as did Eli. Two of ours were the same species. Since we knew each other's teams, I wanted to scout for tactics. In this case, it was best to sacrifice the weaker Pokémon first for the good of the team. And my most recent acquisition needed training. "Sting, come on out!" I said forcefully as I threw a Pokéball into the air. A stream of light flowed to the ground, and condensed into a small insect about the size of my foot. It was wormlike, with a brown segmented body and a horn on top of his head. Weedle weren't known for combat, but they had a surprising amount of uses in certain sectors. I was hoping to use some of those skills in the fight.

Eli looked slightly puzzled at my choice. He knew that I was aware of his Pidgey, and yet I had sent out a Weedle anyways. I'm sure he suspected some sort of a trap. Regardless, he shrugged it off, and through his Pokéball into the air. "Jet, let's do this!" His male Pidgey appeared in the air, fluttering a few feet above the court. It was only about the size of my fist. The first round would be a battle of tiny Pokémon.

I kept a straight face and looked at the field. He had one logical option, and that would be hard to beat. But if he should ever use anything but brute force, the match was mine. "Gust," he called out. How unexpected. The Pidgey began to beat his wings particularly hard, creating a miniature windstorm that raged towards my bug type.

"Tether yourself to the ground," I called over the wind. Right before the volley hit, Sting shot a clump of sticky thread at the floor of the court. As the winds picked up, the little insect was lifted into the air and blown around furiously, but the string held. He never flew into any objects, which kept him somewhat healthy.

Most people don't pick up on such subtle things, but very few Pokémon have a straight out "weakness" to another type. Every one of these was explained in one way or another. The first and most common was simply anatomy. Fire types, for instance, didn't like having their inner flame put out. Water was very painful to them if it got into contact with their flame. This often ended in an immediate KO unless the Pokémon was quite experienced. The other was far less common. Certain species had become abnormally good at hunting prey of a certain type, and their skills could be put to use in a battle. This was true of birds and bugs. Bug types didn't hate the winds. Bird Pokémon were simply good at targeting vital areas with their close range attacks. For all practical purposes, a normal gust attack wasn't any more dangerous than a neutral hit. Not that Eli would understand that.

"Dang. Really expected it to do more," Eli muttered to himself as Sting fell back to the ground. I just smirked. _Just as expected_. "Alright, let's hit him up close."

I flinched a little. Either he actually knew what he was doing, or he just randomly hit on it, but this was going to hurt. "Grapple on. Hurry!" I shouted out quickly. I wasn't sure Sting would react in time, or even get the command at all. It was still better than the alternative.

The Pidgey flew downwards, and slammed into Sting, blasting him back a few feet. I put my hand over Sting's ball. If he didn't have a shot I might as well end it here. Suddenly a pulse of white shot up from the ground, connecting with the flying-type's belly and causing him to cry out in shock. As he fluttered just a little higher, Sting was lifted off the ground. The rest of the round would be fought in the skies. Right in a bird's element.

Eli stared up at the engagement above the court for a few seconds, watching in awe and confusion as Pidgey desperately flapped around, trying to maneuver safely and simultaneously trying to deal with the stowaway hanging from his belly. As Sting fought to climb, Eli finally lowered his head across the battlefield to look at me. "I have no idea where this is going, but I trust you have a plan?" I smiled slightly. If only he knew. "Shake him off Jet. Do a barrel roll!"

Gary cracked a smile on the sidelines. I have no idea why. Regardless, my attention was elsewhere. Pidgey was turning around desperately to no avail. Sting was latched directly onto the bird now, positioned to strike. This was going to be fun. I crossed my arms and continued to watch the struggle with a look of apathy. "Poison Sting," I called out nonchalantly. There weren't many things that could get Eli irritated. An opponent beating him, _and_ not seeming to care was one of them. I assumed that would apply to battles too.

My calm combined with Eli's rather dark situation was not helping his composure. "Quick Attack, Tackle, do something!" he cried out in agitation. Of course, I doubt the Pidgey heard it. It's kind of hard to hear over an extremely loud avian shriek. I glanced back up, a smile playing on my lips again. _Perfect_. The Pidgey was breathing heavily, barely staying aloft. It was obvious he was in pain, and a lot of it. I almost felt bad. Of course, it's not like I hadn't seen far worse.

Eli stared up at his battered Pidgey. "Since when can a Weedle do that?" he asked me, not taking his eyes off of his Pokémon as it tried to peck at the bug just out of his beak's range.

I shrugged. "An old friend taught me some tricks. What more is there to say?" I glanced back at Eli, briefly making eye contact. "Again."

The second sting didn't have nearly the same effect as the first, but it was irrelevant. The poison was already in the bird's blood. It would be over soon enough. As Sting withdrew his stinger, I noticed something. Eli hadn't said anything in the entire time it took to complete the attack. I'd noticed in his battle with Gary he was fairly analytical, but that was pushing it. At long last he looked back down to give his orders. "Tackle the ground."

"Get off. Now." I called out as his Pidgey began to dive bomb towards the ground. He had hesitated briefly when given the orders that would cause him pain, and that had given enough opening for Sting to blast a jet of string towards a light post before the bird slammed into the ground with full force. It didn't look good, to say the least.

"Come on Jet, you can do this!" Eli pleaded. Unfortunately, he couldn't. The Pidgey shuddered once more before collapsing on the ground, the poison momentarily overcoming him.

We both stared down at the Pidgey for a moment as Weedle dropped back onto the court. Eventually, Eli withdrew him in a flash of red. "I never knew a Weedle's venom was that powerful," he murmured to himself.

"Normally it isn't," I affirmed. He glanced up at me, clearly wanting more explanation. "I can't tell you everything, can I? Let's just say that a friend taught me. He closed his eyes and nodded slowly.

"Alright," he reopened his eyes, new intensity shining in them. "Let's do this, Hive!" In a flash of light, his Weedle appeared in front of mine, the two bugs glaring at each other. I tapped my foot on the court thinking of options. Either by luck or skill, he had sent out the Pokémon I couldn't take down easily. That and he had ensured a long battle. "Let's go for a poison sting!" he called out. Maybe he was trying to imitate my last move. Or he simply didn't have any better options.

I sighed. "Bug Bite," I called out wearily. "Wake me up in about sixty exchanges," I told Eli across the court.

It didn't quite get to sixty. At around Bug Bite/Poison Sting thirty I stopped caring. "Sting, come back. You've done enough, and I have things to do." Gary turned towards me as the beam of red emerged from my Weedle's Pokéball.

"You know that-"

"Disqualifies him? Yeah, I know," I replied. "Ace, let's destroy him." With a small battle cry, my female Pidgey appeared over the field, clearly intent on showing her younger brother how to kill a Weedle. Speaking of which, Hive was shaking pretty intensely. If he knew he was able to, he probably would have withdrawn himself back into his Pokéball. I shook my head as Eli gave some sort of a pep talk. This was going to be one fast round.

"Quick Attack!" I called out with a bit more enthusiasm than usual. Check.

Eli smirked, apparently grateful I'd just taught him how to counter it. "String shot when he gets close," he called out boldly, probably to convince his Pokémon that, yes, he did want him to go into the air with a flying type. The training simulator denying crazy requests given without much force was surprisingly realistic.

"Veer to the right," I casually ordered. Ace continued to rush forwards, but lunged off to the side, causing Hive's hastily prepared attack to go wide. "Fly back into the air."

Pidgey hovered a few feet above the ground in front of me, awaiting her next orders as she gave Hive the glare that only a predator could give. I smiled. I was quite lucky that I got the bird with hunting instincts. I just had to avoid having her and Sting fight together. I gave Eli my own arrogant smirk, arms crossed and head cocked in a way that simply screamed 'beat that.'

Eli gave a wry smile in return. "I don't know when you got time to train your Pokémon like that, but I'm quite impressed. Maybe you could teach me some time?" I smiled a little. "But I'm not giving up yet, String Shot his wings."

"Her," I calmly retorted. "She's female," Eli shrugged, which just ticked off Ace more. As Weedle finally prepared his String Shot, he was quite a bit slower than mine, I gave the only words that seemed right. "Get 'em girl. Gust." Check. As the silky fiber flew through the air, Ace beat her wings furiously, giving off a hunting cry as the string flew back, ensnaring a terrified Weedle. "Quick Attack," I called out, voice imbued with the rush of victory. Ace gave one last predatory shriek, jaws wide open as she closed in on a particularly vulnerable segment.

Checkmate.

Eli withdrew his Weedle back into his ball, and reached down for his third ball as I rubbed Ace's head. "And that's how you beat a Weedle," I called out at him.

"Remind me not to irritate you unless you've got half your team unconscious," he replied. "Marine, finish the bird." His Squirtle appeared at his side, a battle-ready look on his face. I flicked my head from Ace to the water type and she flew back over the court.

Gary glanced out at the two competitors. "Alright, are you guys ready?"

"What about this doesn't seem ready?" I wanted to glare at him, but I really couldn't. Dominating a competition of any kind was too much fun.

He shrugged. "Begin."

"Bubble, quick!" Eli shouted as his turtle began to spit out a slew of slow moving bubbles. Ace glanced at them all nervously, unsure of what to against all of the objects that entered her airspace.

"Gust," I ordered reassuringly. With that she got her confidence back and beat her wings again, popping or redirecting most of the bubbles when they hit the winds. "Trust me, Eli. If it didn't work against Gary, it won't work against me."

Eli nodded his head, "Well, it was worth a try. Let's try to collide with him head on."

I shifted uneasily on my feet. Wasn't I the only one who could give orders without shouting out the name of my attack for the world to hear? Squirtle ran slowly across the battlefield on two legs, awkwardly waddling towards Ace. I shook my head, "Just dodge it." Ace flew up in the air, and Squirtle broke into a malicious smile. Something bad was coming.

Sqirtle jumped into the air, withdrawing into his shell to make him more aerodynamic and spin higher. The attack hit Ace directly. I bit my lip as she blasted back by the much larger turtle, eventually stabilizing herself before she hit the ground. I'd forgotten how much more time Eli had training his Squirtle than his other Pokémon. For some reason I'd expected another easy fight. "Fly higher." I said, trying to maintain composure and come up with a better plan.

Eli grinned over at my side of the field, a boastful look on his face. Once again, not good. "Same strategy, but let's boost it a little!" he ordered. Normally he wasn't one for grandeur. Apparently winning a fight brings that out in everyone.

"Dodge it," I called out preemptively. I didn't want to wait for the hit. And apparently I didn't call it a moment too late, as a second later Squirtle shot into the sky, bubbles being launched from his shell as he propelled himself higher into the air. Ace barely ducked to the side. Even then she still got bubbles into her face and a slight scratch from the water type. "Tackle him while he's in the air," I had my composure back, and a plan to boot. This could be fun.

Ace slammed into the turtle as he plummeted, speeding up his descent and driving him into the ground hard. At the last moment, my Pidgey pulled back up, leaving a battered Squirtle beneath her. "She's a her. She doesn't like it when you call her a him," I was giving Eli my best condescending smirk, which was quite impressive.

Eli laughed, and looked intently at his Squirtle as he pulled himself back up, slowly and painfully. "It's not over yet."

_How tough can that thing be?_ My smirk turned into a frown. This was going to be more difficult than I expected.

"Marine, same tactic!" _Damn it. How much longer can he keep this up?_ Ace was too close to dodge, which left me with almost no options. Ace stared into the onrushing turtle, beating herself up higher with every flap of her wings. It wasn't going to be enough. That's when it hit me. I couldn't get Ace higher in the air, but did I really need to? "Gust attack, now!" I shouted quickly. Ace understood almost immediately, and beat her wings faster, but not to fly. The winds slowed Marine's ascent to a stop, right before he hit Ace. The water type struggled against the gale with blasts of bubbles. But it wasn't going to work. With one final cry of his name, Squirtle fell back to Earth once more.

As Marine hit the ground, Ace lowered herself closer to the court floor to keep it up. Squirtle was still in his shell, and was blown back towards the fence, where he continued to spin in the face of the gust attack. Sparks arced as Squirtle continued to grind against the fence. The friction, winds, and bashing against metal obviously wasn't doing Squirtle any favors, but both Eli and I knew that it would only get worse if he came out.

"So, can you just surrender now and get it over with?" I asked Eli, trying to keep my tone from showing my satisfaction at putting him in checkmate. To my surprise he just shook his head.

"Not a chance. Marine, come out." To Eli's credit, his Squirtle had a lot of trust in him. A lot. The Squirtle slowly poked a limb out of his shell, only to cry out in pain as it was bashed against the fence hard. "Come on, keep trying!" The Pokémon continued to get his flesh pinched and slammed between the metal and his shell. This was followed by a splatter of a watery liquid and a cry of pain. This went on for about a minute, both Eli and I staring at Squirtle and waiting for something to happen as the pool of liquid grew.

"Stop," I breathed out. Ace looked at me questioningly, trying to figure out if she'd heard me correctly. "I said stop," I told her with a bit more force, eyes still locked onto the pool on the ground. Reluctantly, Ace stopped flapping her wings and landed on the ground. As Marine pulled himself off the ground, I turned back to Eli. "Shall we con-"

"Rapid Tackle!" Eli shouted.

"Dod-" I didn't finish before the attack was completed. Squirtle burst forth, spinning back in his shell and causing pale blood to spiral over the immediate area. At the last moment before collision, he jumped out. The water type slammed into Ace with a spinning tackle, taking her out for the count. I withdrew her quickly. "Lava, go!" In a flash of light, my Charmander appeared at my side, claws raised. I smiled faintly. However good Ace and Sting were, they were nothing compared to the one Pokémon I had been training for years. This would barely be a fight.

"Alright, let's take him out fast. Bubble!" Eli shouted out. Hadn't he figured out that the move _never_ worked for him?

"Ember all of them," I stated. Lava nodded and lashed out his tail towards Squirtle's swarm of bubbles. Some of them instantly popped when exposed to the attack. Others popped when bubbles near them popped. A few made it close to Lava, and he simply tore them apart with his claws. Only one or two hit, and they weren't going to be nearly enough to take Lava out of the fight.

I faked a yawn. "Are we done yet?"

-SoV-

The cathedral was a very impressive sight in the evening. A huge, black building stretched into the skyline. It illuminated the square around it with lights shining through massive red stained glass windows, giving a red hue to the plaza. I lost my breath as I looked up at the massive archway leading into the building. I'd almost forgotten how impressive this place was. I glanced over at Eli and Gary, both of whom were staring up at the building, mouths hanging open. I turned to Gary. "You've really never seen the cathedral at night?" He just shook his head, continuing to stare up at it. I laughed inside my head. If I'd had a camera, I definitely would have taken a picture of him staring dumbly at the structure.

"It's more impressive inside if you two ever get around to closing your mouths." I ran off towards the entrance. They could follow when they wanted to.

I feel as if I might need to give some background here, although I expect Gary will do it at some point during one of his tangents. Viridian was the headquarters of the League in Kanto. When the league had moved in, they decided to build a cathedral to the deity associated with Pokémon training. Fairly fitting for a league city. At least, as fitting as a church in _that particular _city could be.

Mew might have been better. Not many people would've understood though. So, Palkia it was.

The inside of the cathedral was the most spectacular sight in the city. Considering the luxury of some of the general's and executive's homes, that's saying a lot. Red stained glass windows provided most of the light. As the sun went down, some was supplemented by torches in red spheres of glass. The largest of these was the gem on the gigantic relief of the Lord of Space above the alter. Along the walls, huge murals depicted the myths associated with Palkia.

The church was relatively crowded in the evening. Some of the people there were worshippers of Palkia who were offering up the prayers. There were a few tourists in the crowd, as well as a few new trainers who wanted to ask for Palkia's benevolence in their training career. Most were locals, worshippers of Arceus or Mew, who simply used the cathedral as a place to worship their deity, and meet up with others.

With all of these groups together, it was packed in the main room. That makes it even more surprising that I noticed heart all. She couldn't have been more than eight, and was noticeably shorter than those around her. Her eyes, hair, and clothing were either red, or light enough to be shaded pink due to the stained glass. Looking at the shade the light made her skin appear, probably the latter. She didn't seem to have any parents with her, which was already strange. But what was stranger was that she was staring right at me.

I glanced to the side to make sure that Sting wasn't still on my shoulder. Not many people would take it well if I walked into the most sacred site to Palkia in the Indigo League with a bug riding along on my shoulder. He would probably get crushed in the crowds anyways. I breathed a sigh of relief when I confirmed she wasn't staring at my Weedle and turned my gaze back to meet hers.

She was still staring at me. If anything, her gaze had just gotten more intense. It felt really, really weird. It was almost like she was staring right through me and looking at something else. Something _inside me._ Mrs. Ambrose had done something similar a few times at the lab, but never for so long. Or as intensely. This girl, she had to know I saw her, but she just kept staring anyways. I was torn. Part of me wanted to go up to her and see what was wrong. Part of me wanted to get as far away from this girl as possible. Something just didn't seem right. She resolved the matter.

The girl raised her hand in front of her slowly, and curled it towards her, motioning for me to come. I almost didn't have a choice. My body started moving through the crowd before I could even think, and I would've done the same after thought anyways. Something was wrong. And I wanted to know what.

The girl slipped out of a door onto the outside balcony before I could catch up. When I got to the opening, I paused momentarily. Then I walked through. And fell right into history.

"Come on Silver, just come on out already. I give up!" A small girl in blue clothing walked out onto a balcony high above the ground below. Nearby, a small boy with dark hair and mischievous grin locked on his face crouched behind a vase, well hidden from the girl. His grin tightened, and he burst out from behind the vase.

"Boo!" he screamed out, causing the girl to whirl around and instinctively step back in shock.

One step too far.

"Aaaaaahhhhh!" She tripped on a toy car the boy had been playing with earlier and slid back, slamming into the balcony railing. Unfortunately, she was just a bit too small. Small enough that the cracks in the railing could let her slip through if she hit it just right. She hit it. Just right.

Falling.

She was falling now, screaming her last scream for years after the event. She would always deny it, but she felt like she had to remain composure. Had to remain some of the dignity that was almost all lost in the fall. Oh, there were other reasons to be sure. The events of the following years didn't help her any. Maybe it had nothing to do with the first fall. Maybe it's just a part of growing up. Whatever the reason for the subsequent absence of screeching, the scream during the fall was the loudest of her life.

The reason? There wasn't hope. Some part of her mind may have tried to reason that daddy would save her, but daddy wasn't there. Silver and Janine were both above her. No one was in the yard. It was time to give up, and simply scream her objections to fate for another fifty feet. Or forty-five.

Right before the impact, a feral beast jumped up. He was young, still fairly small for a member of his already small species. His teeth were bared, and he was yelling something in his strange language of battle cries. Yeah, it could get worse. She should have just been thankful for a full fifty feet.

But then something completely defying the laws of nature occurred. The Mankey, a member of the most vicious species in the Pokémon world, caught her, breaking her fall. She opened her eyes, still screaming as her mind tried to process what was going on. People were running out into the yard now. The Mankey put her down, and jumped in between the people and the girl, teeth bared. What was all of this? The girl couldn't piece it together before she finally went unconscious from shock.

He was older now. This time I still screamed after he picked me up in his arms, now more silver than tan, and dragged me onto a rather large ledge. He backed off, giving me a few minutes to compile my thoughts. I had fallen. It was impossible. That doorway had just led to another room. How had I ended up out here. Where was out here? I glanced back up at the building above me, taking some comfort in the sight of the stained glass. At least I hadn't gone too far. After I caught my breath, I laughed quietly, causing the Mankey to stir uneasily. "How are you doing, Reaver?" I breathed out between small intervals of quiet laughter. I hugged my first Pokémon friend tightly, laughing louder now, not really caring if anyone else heard. Or why he was even here for that matter. It was just beyond caring about at the moment.

After a minute or so of that, Reaver pushed me away and held out his hand again. I noticed two things tied to it by a small string I hadn't seen before. A Pokéball and a note. After glancing up at his eyes to make sure he was doing what I thought he was doing, I gently reached out and untied the knot.


	5. P1C4

1.4 Survivor

I hate meetings. Actually, I don't mind them so much at all if I'm in it, as at least I'm gaining valuable information. It's annoying when it seems that everyone else who has any importance at all is in the meeting. Even then, I wouldn't mind it as Father would tell me what I needed to know anyways, and if not I didn't need to know about it. What I really hated was that work still needed to be done, and sitting around a conference table means that those people weren't doing their obligations. This normally meant that I had to take over for the day. Sometimes, like when I needed to watch Pokémon or monitor some sort of a research project, it wasn't all that bad. Actually, maybe I don't hate meetings at all. But I am positively certain that I hate rookie training.

New recruits normally fall into one of three categories. They are either overly eager and try to hard at everything but are still completely inept, totally disregard any instructions given and try to be the hotshot who already deserves a promotion, or they start out well enough but are too weak to continue training for long before they complain. Category one I can deal with, as they are at least willing to learn and they treat any instructor they have as some sort of a god. Category three can normally be pressured back into working in silence by a glare, unsheathing my knife, or sending out Golbat. I absolutely cannot stand category two. Most of them will show some respect to an older figure such as my father, and Valence has the patience and personality to deal with them. Me? Most hotshots don't think their pride can handle listening to a small fourteen year-old girl. That's where the problems begin.

The class was surprisingly far in today with no incident. It was just a simple physical exercise consisting of a fairly long obstacle course with areas in the middle for strength or flexibility building activities. A few recruits had already finished the course, and were running the obligatory cool down laps. That probably meant that class was about three hours in or so. I didn't think anyone had died yet, but I hadn't really been paying attention. I was still fairly tired from staying out way too late last night. I'd even broken curfew, but Father had already left when I woke up in the morning. I was not looking forwards to receiving my punishment.

That or he would view rookie training supervision as enough.

Two more recruits stepped out of the course and I jumped down from my elevated platform to speak with them, landing on my feet as always. "Five laps," I called out to them.

"Can't we get a break?" one of them whined. Type three.

"In a real battle, there is no break until the enemy has been defeated or you are dead. I do not believe you wish to be in the second group, so I suggest you keep moving," I responded.

"Oh, come on. We've been doing these exercises for a week now. Besides, it's not like we're ever going to use anything but our Pokémon anyways. What the hell is the point of all this?" The second recruit asked. Type two. Arceus, this was going to be annoying.

"The point is a commander in Team Rocket told you to do it," I snapped, and immediately regretted it. Valence always said that being diplomatic would go a long way in cases like these, and I had been making an honest effort to be more diplomatic. But my patience under minimal sleep is very, very low.

The recruit raised his eyebrow, "Wait, _you're_ a commander? What kind of sorry state is this place-" One well placed kick between the legs sent him to the ground. I smiled mentally. Male recruits were so much easier to deal with than their female counterparts. As he struggled back up, I glanced around at the others who were running laps. I waved my hand dismissively and firmly ordered them to continue. I turned back to see the second recruit rising from the ground and the first staring at me in fear. "Will I be having any more troubles with you?"

The second one grunted. "I'll remember to respect the commanders. But seriously, why are we doing this again?"

I glared at him for a moment, and he shied away from me. "Even if you're Pokémon are stronger than mine, which I very highly doubt, you still run the risk of all of them getting killed or fainted in a battle with multiple enemies. In most situations such as these, you don't have the time to load and aim your gun before the enemy that defeated your last Pokémon can kill you. And carrying a loaded gun is not the brightest idea, before you ask. Therefore, you must be able to physically overpower and outlast your aggressor. Do you have any more questions?" he shook his head, apparently satisfied with my explanation. "Then go and run ten laps."

The first recruit opened his mouth comically wide in shock. "B-But you said five!"

"Yes, but questioning the orders of a commander warrants another five laps."

"Oh come on, I doubt that _you _could even do this course and the laps." The first recruit muttered under his breath. He probably didn't expect I could hear it.

"As a matter of fact, I could do this course faster than you when I was eight. And I was blindfolded. Therefore, I highly recommend that you start running now." Well, so much for trying diplomacy earlier.

He shook his head, "I somehow doubt that. Let's say this. We have a fight, no Pokémon involved. If I win, I can leave. If I lose,"

"I will give you the proper punishment for insubordination," I finished.

"Fine, let's do this," he shouted out. There was a small crowd of people behind him who had finished the course who were staring at the scene with a mix of confusion, hope, and fear. A quick glance showed that the recruits who were running had all stopped to watch the scene. I turned back just in time to watch a punch sail towards my face.

I quickly ducked down, letting it barely come over me before I jumped back up to his side, and kicked him hard. He recoiled and stepped back a few feet while he recovered his balance. I didn't let him. One final roundhouse kick to the head sent him slamming into the ground barely conscious. That's when I pulled out my knife. The entire fight had taken maybe ten seconds as a maximum.

"Come on, the knife's not fair," the recruit groaned.

"If life isn't fair, than fairness is banned in warfare," I hissed out, pressing the blade closer to his neck as he looked at it, apparently uncaring. I doubt he believed that I would actually use it.

"Yeah, yeah, can you just get off of me?"

I glanced at him quizzically, "What did you say?"

"I said can you get off of me already," he growled, making some sort of an attempt to push me off.

"I might consider it if you requested it properly," I told him. Now I was just trying to be annoying. I really hate class two recruits.

"Oh for the love of Arceus, can you just get the," he didn't finish. His eyes got wide, and he started coughing, some sort of a question on his lips. For the first time today, and the last as well, he actually looked scared. And then his eyes rolled back and his head hit the ground. I made a mental note to get someone out here to clean up the blood as I stepped off of him.

I glanced back around at the recruits, their faces all somewhere between shock and fear. "Get back to running," I called out. They all followed orders, most of them with a "Yes, commander" attached. I smiled as I wiped off my knife with a cloth. I really loved it when I got an excuse to do that.

-SoV-

It should be noted that I was dreading my meeting with Father far more than any training session. I had disregarded his curfew last night, and never provided an explanation why. That, and the explanation I had was very weak compared to what would normally be required to defy his orders. He also wouldn't take to the dead recruit very well, but I doubt that was big enough to make him seriously angry. Actually, that might lighten his mood a bit. He would probably be proud that I had taken the correct approach to getting others respect, and dealing with those who refused to give it. At least I'd done something right recently.

I glanced up at the large old house ahead of me. It was one of the oldest buildings in the valley, being a small outpost for assassins hired by the league for centuries. When Father was in Viridian to meet with the other high level executives in Team Rocket, I stayed here with him. Being the heir to the ninja clan at Fuchsia, he had access to quite a few safe houses such as these around the continent. I often stayed in these during assignments outside of Fuchsia, and they'd grown on me. Most of them were just about the same; large, empty houses that appeared to have been abandoned for centuries. To be fair, some of them honestly had been. The city governments often tried to bulldoze them to either improve the scenery or make room for something else. Rumors of spirits inside of the homes was often enough to spark the opposition from the public needed to stop the project. If not, I was often asked to help. After I was done, paranoia was high enough that no one ever got close to destroying Father's property.

I thought for just another moment before walking into the house. Father had told me he would be there by noon, and I did not want to keep him waiting after disregarding his curfew the previous night. I shivered a little as I entered. I really disliked the cold and my ninja outfit didn't do much to keep me warm. This house in particular always managed to be freezing, even in the summer. Father really should've gotten someone to fix the place up a while ago to negate the many cracks that winds blew through. He always cited the need to keep the home private and secret, and he could not have workmen learning our secrets. I never questioned him aloud, but I did wonder why he couldn't just let the workmen fix the house, and then dispose of them. It would solve the problem quite nicely.

At the end of the hall, Father was waiting in the living room reading through some papers. Father was dressed as usual in black ninja clothing with a small red cape. He glanced up when I entered and I bowed. He motioned for me to rise, and I sat down across from him in a red wooden chair. He put the stack of papers down and looked me over, trying to read any emotion I might be conveying. "You've gotten better at remaining neutral," he said at last. "I almost have to blindly guess to tell what you're feeling. I can only tell that you're nervous, would you tell me why?" He was quite good at reading into people.

I steeled my resolve, and answered him, "I was out past curfew last night Father."

He raised an eyebrow, "And why does this make you nervous?"

I opened my eyes wider in shock. Why didn't he get it? "I broke a rule set by you without even asking in advance Father. That is forbidden and I deserve to be punished."

Father stared at me intently for a few minutes, and then nodded. "That is true. Would you tell me why you were out past curfew?"

I tensed up for a moment. I doubted he would accept my answer. "I was visiting a friend."

Koga frowned. "Would you tell me why you needed to visit them at night?"

"I didn't know if they would be here for more than one night, father."

Father looked perplexed, but slowly asked, "Would you tell me which friend were visiting?"

I breathed in and shut my eyes, trying to get up the resolve to tell him. "Bianca Aethus."

If he was puzzled earlier, he was genuinely surprised by this. "Missus Aethus? What was she doing back in Viridian?" he retained his composure, but it was easy to tell that he had been rocked a little.

"She was on an assignment from Professor Oak and was needed in Viridian."

"She knows Professor Oak?" he asked. Something about that in particular seemed to throw him off balance.

"Yes, Father. She recently got her trainer's license and is now working for the Professor as an aide." I glanced up at him, as he stared off into the distance, lost in thought. "Is something wrong father?"

He continued staring off for a moment, and then answered slowly, "Yes. Would you tell me," his eyes refocused down on me, "why you didn't tell me of this earlier?" he almost seemed angry. This wasn't good.

"Father, I was only informed of this last night. I saw her walking out of the Cathedral, so I trailed her back to the Pokémon Center to talk to her."

He nodded slowly. He understood, but he was still angry about something. "Would you tell me why you risked sneaking into a Pokémon Center to talk to her?" he asked evenly, but it was pretty easy to see the question was quite a bit more accusatory than the tone would suggest.

"Father, you know that I of all people could pull off such a task rather easily. It was no challenge at all to go undetected."

His expression softened a little as he calmed down. "And you are sure that no one but Missus Ambrose saw you?"

I hesitated for a moment. There was that one boy who might have seen me. Of course I'd been below detection at the time, but he had been looking right at me, almost like he could see me. "Yes," I lied. 

Father nodded. Whether or not he noticed my hesitation he believed me. After all, I had never lied to him before this about anything. But for some reason, I felt like I almost couldn't tell him about the run in. It would be embarrassing if he knew someone might have seen me. We sat in silence for several minutes. "Father," I began. He glanced up and, motioned for me to continue. "There was another reason I was late last night. One of the two with Bianca, he was a bit strange."

"How so?" Father asked.

"Well, he had a scar that matched mine almost exactly for one. And there seemed to be some sort of an aura around him. I couldn't identify it exactly, but it was strange. Almost like the power emitted from a moon stone."

Father leaned back into his chair, a smile playing on his lips. "Well, it seems like yet another one of the Dawn projects has appeared. This could warrant investigation." His mind seemed to be racing, and he stood upright before looking down at me and sitting down into his chair. "My apologies, I forgot to tell you something." I leaned forwards eagerly.

"Is it about the meeting?" I asked. He nodded.

"Yes, I'm sorry that you could not attend but someone had to watch the rookies. As for the meeting itself," he inhaled and looked up at the ceiling. "Team Rocket is going to war."

My eyes widened, "War? But, why? And with who?" I asked quickly before Father cut me off.

"All in due time, Janine. All in due time. As for your questions, yes, war. Lance himself approached Master Kyo with an offer to help him with some military operations to prevent a rebellion planned by a certain Samuel Oak. In two days, Rocket forces will storm Pallet Town and other resistance strongholds in an attempt to prevent the rebellion from occurring and disrupting order in the region. However your news complicates things." I waited for him to continue.

"You can probably understand that there are certain," he paused, "_pressures_ to capture Missus Aethus alive rather than dead. That will possibly prevent us from burning the entire city to the ground before we have confirmation she is out of there. It also means that she has likely been corrupted by the Professor. Her father will not be happy about that. And the Operation Dawn survivor also has his uses." He rose and began to walk towards another room. "I must discuss these matters with Master Kyo. Please wait here."

A few minutes passed as I sat in the chair, waiting for Father to finish his phone call. I grew bored rather quickly, and really wanted to fall asleep. Of course, Father would be most displeased if I actually did fall asleep on him while he was expecting me to remain alert, so I forced myself to stay awake. If I had to stay awake, part of me really wanted to send out my Stantler so I could pet him, but Father disliked Pokémon out of their Pokeballs in the house, his Crobat being the only exception.

At long last, Father reentered the room and sat down. "It appears as if you have an assignment." I shifted nervously in my seat. Those varied widely, but most of them were fairly time consuming and dangerous. "Master Kyo has requested that you trail the boy and Missus Aethus, keeping them safe until such time as they can be captured by Team Rocket. You are also to avoid detection yourself. Is this clear?" I nodded. "Good, you will begin tomorrow. The first stage of your assignment is to ensure that they do not die during the attack on Pallet Town." He rose again. "I have a meeting with Master Kyo now. You may pack your bags and prepare to leave today or tomorrow morning. Leave me a message if you are leaving today." And with that, he walked out of the door, shutting it softly.

-SoV-

I quickly packed up my backpack, the process taking no more than five minutes after years of assignments with little to no notice. At least I had almost a full day to prepare for this one, even if I had no intentions of using it all. I had nothing better to do, so I might as well start early and scout out the town and areas between Pallet and Viridian that could be used for camps or hiding areas, or even points where Rocket agents could meet up with me and finish the mission. When I was finally done packing, my cell phone hummed quietly. My head instinctively shot up and I jumped back a little before I realized what the noise had been. Father had made me get one for assignments a while ago, but I still disliked using it. I picked it up, and noted that Silver had sent a text message to me to meet him at the Cathedral in an hour. I shrugged, and placed the phone into the back of my backpack before leaving to write a note to Father.

-SoV-

The Cathedral was possibly my second favorite place in the entire Kanto region. It emitted a feel of sacredness and power that was virtually unmatched. Palkia wasn't necessarily my favorite deity, but it was very high up there. Actually, only Darkrai and Arceus surpassed it, and Darkrai pretty much only because of his role as the legendary founder of the ninjas. I viewed Arceus as the chief deity like pretty much everyone else in Kanto. Ho-oh was a Johto thing, and I wasn't quite sure what to think about Mew. It was kind of complicated, and I didn't like to dwell on it long.

Palkia was the alleged founder and protector of trainers and trained Pokémon. By teaching humanity how to distort space to capture and transport Pokémon it had opened the way for Pokémon training. That was kind of a big deal for Team Rocket to the point where it was considered an immediate death penalty for anyone who disturbed a priest of Palkia. Of course, immediate death penalty was the punishment for pretty much everything. Including messing with a tired commander, apparently. I smiled; those rookies were never going to mess with any authority figure again.

I glanced down at the familiar layout of the cathedral floor beneath me from the balcony I usually stood on. I looked past the doorway that I'd seen Bianca run out of last night, eyes briefly lingering there. None of what happened last night made any sense. Bianca just randomly took off towards a doorway, and the next moment was screaming as she fell from a ledge behind the balcony I was standing on. I was used to some pretty strange things, but that probably topped the list. At least Silver had the foresight to keep Reaver around to watch for her.

I was brought out of my thoughts by footsteps to the right. They were purposefully quiet, and were almost drowned out by the background noise. They were faint in an unnatural way. He, and I was pretty sure it was a male by the sound of the footsteps, was trying to sneak up on me. I reached for my dagger, only to grab cloth and remember that I never went into the cathedral armed. I whirled around, prepared for a fistfight if need be, to face a young boy in a silver jacket about a foot shorter than me. His hair was died red and moderately long. I had no idea how a man as protective and formal as Master Kyo would allow his son to die his hair such an unnatural shade of red, and I never really would figure it out. "Silver," I stated evenly, standing up into a more casual stance.

He laughed quietly, almost as if I'd said some sort of a joke. He laughed a lot at that time in such a strange foil to the rest of his family. "I really can't sneak up on you can I?"

I shook my head, "It's possible, but stealth isn't your thing, is it?"

He laughed again. "No, it really isn't." His face became more serious. "You're off to see Bianca, aren't you."

I was always amazed by how quickly he could go from light-hearted to very direct. "Someone's got to make sure she doesn't die," I responded.

He smiled a little, "I don't think she would need the help. She was always such a great strategist and tried to learn so much about battling. She has Reaver with her too, so she shouldn't really be in any danger."

I shook my head. "I don't know. There's going to be a lot of chaos, and there will be a lot of grunts in the city. It could actually be dangerous for her," I noted Silver's expression and added on, "at least, the fires could be dangerous."

His expression fell a little, "They're really going to burn the city, aren't they?" He sounded so dejected. He was honestly the only person I knew of who had grown up in the League or Rocket world and had not realized the need for violence to maintain order.

"I don't know, actually. It's probable, but it will really be up to the Champion, or Father, or your father, or whoever's in charge of the mission. Besides, it's not like that many people live there anyways," I tried to be encouraging, but his expression became even more downcast if anything.

"Do you think she'll fight us?"

"Who?" I asked.

"Bianca." A heavy silence formed between Silver and I. I really didn't know. She _was _an aide to Professor Oak, and she had lived in Pallet Town for almost as long as she had lived in Viridian. Whichever side she picked, she was going to be against friends and family. It was actually kind of depressing.

"I don't think so," I lied. Two lies in one day was my new record. That wasn't one I was proud of. "She really didn't want to leave Viridian in the first place, and she still remembers us quite well. Under different circumstances, she would almost certainly be here with us."

He nodded and I felt really bad. I wasn't confident at all in my answer, but I'd managed to convince Silver of it completely. That was one of his problems: he trusted his friends way too much. "I heard there's another Dawn survivor in the town."

I nodded, and glanced down at the floor. I still wasn't quite able to wrap my mind around that. As far as anyone was aware, there was a problem in Operation Dawn that killed pretty much everyone involved. There had only been two known exceptions before yesterday, although a few people suspected that Samuel Oak had managed to keep someone else alive after the events that had claimed a championship, an island, and several dozen lives.

"Yes, there is."

"And how do you feel about that?" he asked.

I turned away and stared up at the massive stained glass windows depicting the various myths involving Palkia. The sun was lowering, and the angle of sunlight hit the windows perfectly, lighting all of them up with a bright pink light and making the cathedral glow a shade of pink.

I stared in awe at the magnificence of the legendary Pokémon depicted before me, and took it as a sign to stop lying.

"I don't know. I barely know anything about what's coming next."

"Do you know where you're starting at," Silver asked casually as he stared along with me at the stained glass.

"I think I know. A few things are falling into place," I admitted.

He nodded, a smile coming onto his face as it was illuminated by the light. "That's the hard part. Now you've just got to figure everything out." He laughed again, and began to walk down the stairs towards the main floor of the building.

I slung my backpack over one shoulder, and started to follow him as I tried to figure out what he'd said.


End file.
